Sighting in Vieille-Chapelle, June 1982

The account was collected in 2013 and concerns an old sighting whose exact date the witness could not recall. GEIPAN arbitrarily settled on 25 June, based on a few clues the witness provided. At the end of June 1982, several people had gathered in the evening to watch the starry sky for the passage of a crewed spaceflight. Around 3 a.m., they were surprised to see two other luminous objects they could not identify move across the sky. Only one witness statement was obtained.

The first French crewed spaceflight mission ran from 25 June to 2 July 1982, so the sighting may have taken place on 25 or 26 June. According to GEIPAN, the scene described could result from the apparent tracks of other satellites at different altitudes happening to coincide. The arrival of the third object could simply have been it leaving the Earth's shadow, which would have suddenly lit it up in the sunlight.

The orbital data for the many satellites in orbit at that time are not available, so GEIPAN has no means of checking this hypothesis. The case is classified C because there is not enough information.