Sighting in Vendée, February 9, 1976

At 2:05 a.m., a driver and their passengers, three witnesses in all, noticed a luminous mass in a lightly overcast sky. It first intrigued them, then frightened them. They first saw it as they left Luçon, then stopped the car on the way out of Beugne-L'Abbé and stayed inside it. They watched the object for 2 to 3 minutes. They described it as resembling two hollow plates placed one on top of the other, about twenty metres across. It hovered at first at treetop height, then slowly climbed. No particular noise was heard.

The witnesses drove on toward Les Sables-d'Olonne, still able to follow the object with their eyes, and saw it disappear to the west. The gendarmerie, alerted immediately, found no traces in the area indicated. No other witness reported anything unusual at that hour, and E.D.F. recorded no electrical disturbance on the local network. A different witness did report seeing two silent, unusual craft cross the sky at 8 p.m. the previous evening.

The GEPAN classified the case D in 1978. It was re-examined and reclassified A in 2011, and the 2018 publication changed only its name. GEIPAN considers the case consistent: the description of the location and of the phenomenon is precise, and the witnesses' sincerity has never been doubted. The phenomenon shares many characteristics with the Moon (duration, shape, colour, size), and the Moon was in the area of sky observed, though the witnesses did not mention it. The investigation found that the witnesses' perception was not at fault, but rather their interpretation of what they saw, influenced by tiredness, worry, fear and belief in UFOs. GEIPAN concluded that the sighting was a misidentification of the Moon, an explained case of low strangeness classed A.