GEIPAN Case 2020-01-50998 — CROZON (29) 13.01.2020

Brief

A civilian taxi driver with a background as an aircraft mechanic and naval helicopter diver observed three vivid-red rectangular lights hovering approximately 10 metres ahead and 12 metres above ground on a dark rural road during a violent rainstorm at 07:48 on 13 January 2020. The objects remained perfectly stationary while the witness's vehicle rocked in gusts, emitted no sound, then departed low and fast along the ground contour before ascending steeply at very high speed toward the Cap de la Chèvre semaphore. GEIPAN conducted a three-year investigation including a cognitive interview, site reconstruction, expert committee review, and a formal query to the adjacent BAN Lanvéoc-Poulmic naval air base, which confirmed zero air activity at the time. The case was classified D1 — unexplained — in the report signed July 2023.

Metadata

Agency

GEIPAN / CNES

Release

2007-03-22

Type

PDF • .pdf

Length

70 pages

Classification

UNCLASSIFIED — case classification D1 (unexplained)

Programs

GEIPAN

Tags

red rectangles, nocturnal lights, stationary in high winds, silent, rapid vertical acceleration, low-altitude ground-following departure, Crozon peninsula, Finistère, 2020, GEIPAN D1, naval airspace proximity

Key points

• Three vivid-red horizontal rectangles, each estimated ~2 m long by 50 cm–1 m tall and spaced ~1 m apart, were observed at close range (~10 m distance, ~12 m altitude) by a single witness driving on a dark, unlit rural road.p.2
• The objects held a motionless position during recorded gale-force gusts — while the witness's vehicle physically rocked — and emitted no audible sound throughout the observation.p.3
• The witness held prior aviation credentials: former aircraft mechanic and trained naval helicopter diver (plongeur hélico), explicitly citing this background when ruling out any known aircraft type.p.15
• The observation site sits within ~9 km of BAN Lanvéoc-Poulmic naval air base and within ~4–10 km of the Île Longue SSBN nuclear submarine base, making aeronautical clearance verification a critical investigative step.p.9
• BAN Lanvéoc-Poulmic formally confirmed to GEIPAN that no aircraft, no helicopters, no declared drones, and no 'special activities' were underway at the time of the observation.p.13
• Météo France station data confirmed cloud ceiling of 420–1500 m, 43 mm rainfall by 08:00 local, and severe gusts — conditions independently corroborating the witness's account of adverse weather.p.11
• GEIPAN's expert committee reviewed eight hypotheses (drones, helicopters, light projection, reflective truck markings, windshield reflections, lasers, conventional aircraft, wind turbine beacons) and narrowed detailed analysis to the first three.p.16
• The full investigation cycle ran from receipt of the questionnaire (June 2020) through BAN military exchange (July–August 2022) to the final signed report (July 2023), spanning more than three years.p.2
• The departure trajectory was described by the witness as ricocheting low along the ground contour before ascending toward the sky at very high speed, with no heat signature or noise at any point.p.20

Verbatim

• Roulant sur la route non éclairé je perçois 2 rectangles de grandes tailles de couleurs rouges vif au-dessus des pins qui forment la forêt sur ma gauche (hauteur des pins de 15 à 20 m de haut)

  p.2

• les 3 rectangles se trouvent presque face à moi, un peu sur la gauche , se trouvent à 10m devant moi et à peu près 12m de haut immobile même avec les coups de vents (mon véhicule bougeait à cause des rafales)

  p.2

• c'est parti face à moi en suivant le sol doucement et a accéléré en direction de la pointe du sémaphore de Morgat en montant vers le ciel à très grande vitesse et les 3 lumières rouges ont disparues.

  p.2

• après investigation sur l'activité aéronautique de l'aérodrome de Lanvéoc-Poulmic, je peux vous dire qu'aucune activité aérienne n'était en cours au moment des faits. (Pas d'avions ni d'hélicoptères, pas de drone déclaré ni d'activités « spéciales »).

  p.13

• Je n'ai jamais vu d'aéronef avec des éclairages plus de 8 mètres de long en tout tenir un stationnaire sans bouger avec les rafales de vents qu'il y avait ce jour-là.

  p.15

• Ça ne modifie rien dans ma vie, j'en ai parlé à personne, sauf à vous pour éviter le ridicule, maintenant je comprends les autres : "il faut le voir, pour le croire".

  p.15

• Les phénomènes observés ont un haut degré d'étrangeté. D'autant plus que la description du témoin est très précise.

  p.19

• la lumière rouge était comme attirante, j'étais comme capturé

  p.20

Most interesting

• The three red rectangles held perfectly still during gale-force gusts that physically rocked the witness's Citroën Jumper van — the single most anomalous datum in the aerodynamic analysis.
• The witness did not report the sighting for five months out of fear of ridicule; he was prompted to file only after watching a television program in which journalist Jean-Claude Bourret mentioned GEIPAN and gave its web address.
• The Crozon peninsula observation site is bracketed by two of France's most sensitive military installations: BAN Lanvéoc-Poulmic naval helicopter base (~9 km) and the Île Longue SSBN base housing nuclear ballistic missile submarines (~4–10 km).
• ADS-B traffic archive ads-b.nl showed zero logged military aircraft over the Crozon peninsula for the entire month of January 2020, reinforcing the BAN's formal denial of any airborne activity.
• Wind turbine warning beacons — the only red-light hypothesis the BAN's senior pilots could suggest — were ruled out because they flash asynchronously and are fixed structures, incapable of the observed horizontal and vertical movement.
• GEIPAN notes that nocturnal UAP sightings made under simultaneously stormy, high-wind, and heavy-rain conditions are almost never recorded in the French case database, making this observation meteorologically rare in addition to phenomenologically anomalous.
• The Cap de la Chèvre semaphore, toward which the objects departed, is a French Navy facility maintaining continuous maritime and aerial surveillance of the Bay of Douarnenez — placing the departure vector directly into an actively monitored military zone.
• A technical recording failure during the cognitive interview required the two investigators to fall back on handwritten notes, which were then integrated into the formal report alongside the partial recording.