Sighting in Trévoux, December 4, 1978

At around 9:45 p.m., a witness and their children saw a large white ball moving across the sky at low altitude, travelling from west to east. The round, very bright object seemed to have many twinkling lights inside it. Three lights, one yellow, one green and one red, flashed beneath it. The observation lasted two to three minutes, but the witness could not identify what they were seeing.

During the investigation, other testimonies were collected. Since December 1978, several people had noticed a white ball passing in the same direction. Witnesses also reported regular drops in electrical voltage in the area, the cause of which was never determined. Another witness stated that on 4 December 1978, at around 6 p.m., they had seen a trapezoid-shaped craft with a rectangular base hovering at low altitude, lit by red lights. It made a noise like a helicopter.

The idea that a light aircraft was flying in the valley was put forward, but the air traffic control centre found no trace of any craft on its surveillance radars on the days and times in question. The presence of airfields in the region and the repeated sightings suggest that some of them involved aircraft, but the available information does not allow this to be confirmed. The case was classified C, meaning insufficient data.