Sighting in Toulaud, May 8, 1980

Around 10:30 p.m., soldiers taking part in a night firing exercise on a training ground noticed a very bright, vivid white point of light in the west, at about the height of the mountains. They said it came toward them, then moved closer and farther away, without any noise. One witness said it grew to the size of a football, stopped in front of the group in the direction of the targets, and lit up the spot where they stood to a noticeable degree. The sky was starry and cloudless. The phenomenon then left faster than it had arrived, in the direction it had come from. The firing went on, and the object came back ten to twelve minutes later, much farther away, before disappearing in the west. The observation lasted a long time, over an hour.

GEIPAN re-examined this case, originally classed D, and reclassified it as A. The features of the account match those of a celestial body: long duration, low height in the sky, no angular movement described, and an impression of moving forward and back caused by changes in brightness. Venus was in the west (azimuth 290° to 300°), at an elevation of 16° to 11°, with a magnitude of -4.5. The surrounding mountains, which rose to about 8°, did not hide it. The witnesses did not recognise it, even though it was the brightest star in that part of the sky. The other odd details mentioned were judged to be mere coincidences, which struck the witnesses because of the atmosphere of strangeness already present.