GEIPAN Case 1993-11-01335 — ECQUEVILLY (78) 15.11.1993

Brief

On November 15, 1993, a civilian witness in Ecquevilly (département 78) observed a ring of lights exhibiting varying colors and luminous intensities moving silently — a sighting assigned GEIPAN's highest-uncertainty classification, category D (inexpliqué). The gendarmerie filed procès-verbal N°2668/1994 on January 6, 1994, invoking both the Code de Procédure Pénale and a 1979 Defense Ministry OVM-investigation directive. Responding officers found no physical traces or indices at the scene. The case file comprises a preliminary investigation report, two hand-drawn witness sketches (object shape and trajectory), a five-photograph plate of the site, and a formal witness-testimony PV.

Metadata

Agency

GEIPAN / CNES

Release

2007-03-22

Type

PDF • .pdf

Length

17 pages

Classification

UNCLASSIFIED (GEIPAN Category D — Inexpliqué)

Programs

GEIPAN, GEPAN/SEPRA, DEF/BEND/EMP OVM protocol

Tags

circle of lights, multi-colored lights, silent, low altitude, France, 1993, GEIPAN Category D, Ecquevilly, Seine-et-Marne

Key points

• The case file constituent parts listed in the header include: PV d'enquête préliminaire, croquis d'état des lieux, planche photographique, PV d'audition de témoin, and two hand-drawn sketches — one of the object's shape, one of its trajectory — submitted by the witness.p.1
• The gendarmes conducted the investigation under authority of Articles 73–75 of the Code de Procédure Pénale, acting as agents of judicial police in uniform and conforming to orders from their commanding officers.p.2
• The investigation explicitly invokes Defense Ministry reference DEF/BEND/EMP from April 6, 1979 — France's standing inter-agency protocol for the study of the OVM (Objet Volant Mystérieux) phenomenon — placing this case within a decades-old institutional framework.p.2
• Responding gendarmes reported finding no physical trace or index at the scene that could help determine the circumstances, leaving the case without corroborating physical evidence.p.2
• The formal procès-verbal was numbered 2668/1994 and entered on January 6, 1994 — approximately seven weeks after the November 15, 1993 incident date.p.3
• Photo N°01 positions the UAP above a mound of earth adjacent to a rural path (Chemin Rural), providing a spatial reference for the object's observed hover point.p.8
• Photo N°04 documents the UAP's departure direction, marked with a red arrow — a standard GEIPAN site-survey technique for recording trajectory after the fact.p.11
• Photo N°05 establishes the geometric relationship between the witness's residence and the UAP's observed position, allowing investigators to reconstruct sighting geometry.p.12

Verbatim

• Vue de la position de llObejt Volant Non ~dentifié, au dessus d'un tas de de terre, situé auprés du Chemin Rural .

  p.8

• Vue du lieu où l'Objet Volant Non Identifié a été aperçu par monsieur .

  p.9

• Vue de la direction prise de l'Objet Volant Non Identifié, symbolisée par une fléche rouge.

  p.11

• Vue de la maison d'habitation de monsieur par rapport à la position de l'Objet Volant Non Identifié.

  p.12

• Maus naus transportans immtkitatemsnt sur les lieux.

  p.2

Most interesting

• GEIPAN category D is the classification reserved for sightings that resist all attempted explanation — it is the rarest and most significant designation in the French system. This case holds that status.
• The investigation cites a 1979 Defense Ministry directive (DEF/BEND/EMP) on OVM phenomena, confirming France maintained a formalized, bureaucratically rooted UAP response protocol at least 14 years before this incident.
• The procès-verbal was filed seven weeks after the incident — a delay that likely reflects the gendarmerie's standard administrative cycle rather than urgency, and which is common in GEIPAN's historical archive.
• Both a shape sketch and a trajectory sketch were formally submitted by the witness and incorporated as named exhibits in the official file, indicating the gendarmerie treated the witness's subjective rendering as evidentiary material.
• The document was released publicly in 2007 — 14 years after the incident — as part of GEIPAN's archive-publication campaign on geipan.fr, one of the world's most transparent government UAP disclosure programs.
• Despite the structured photographic survey (five labeled photos, red-arrow trajectory marker), no physical trace was documented, leaving the case dependent entirely on witness testimony and post-hoc site geometry.