Sighting in Vouziers, February 6, 1997

The witness was driving a van when they saw a glowing orange ball in the sky, visible on and off. It moved from west to east. The window was open, and they heard no sound. A newspaper article published about ten days later caught the attention of the local gendarmerie, which took the witness's statement roughly two weeks after the event. Inquiries carried out locally in the following days turned up no other witnesses and no further information.

The case remained weak. There was only one witness, and what they told the journalist did not match what they told the gendarmes. The date was uncertain (the witness mentioned a Thursday in one account and a Tuesday in the other, while 6 February 1997 was a Thursday), and the duration and the object's positions in the sky were vague. Cross-checking the accounts, the GEIPAN found that the duration, shape, size, colour and path closely resembled a pass of the Mir space station, which was visible in the evening at that time. On 6 February, however, it was visible 45 minutes later than the time the witness gave. The Mir hypothesis therefore required an error about the day (the 5th or 7th) or about the time, and it was impossible to say which, with a probability only slightly above 0.5.

The GEIPAN could neither formally confirm a mistaken sighting of Mir nor call the observation unexplained. It classified the case as C: insufficient reliable information.