GEIPAN Case 2013-05-08459 — MENIL-HUBERT-SUR-ORNE (61) 29.05.2013

Brief

On the night of May 29, 2013, at 23:45, a motorist on departementale 25 near Menil-Hubert-sur-Orne observed a large dark object shaped like a rounded pebble, estimated at 25-30 meters in diameter and roughly 1 meter thick, hovering approximately 30 meters above the local cemetery with four red lights and emitting a high-pitched buzzing sound. The object moved slowly northwest before disappearing behind terrain within about one minute; the witness attempted to film but could not retrieve his camera in time. GEIPAN investigators rejected both atmospheric reentry and Thai lanterns as explanations; no corroborating witnesses, photographs, or video emerged. The case was classified D1 (unexplained), with quantified strangeness and consistency scores of 0.55 and 0.65, respectively.

Metadata

Agency

GEIPAN / CNES

Release

2007-03-22

Type

PDF • .pdf

Length

10 pages

Classification

D1 (GEIPAN classification — inexpliqué/unexplained)

Programs

GEIPAN

Tags

pebble-shaped, dark object, four red lights, low altitude, high-pitched hum, slow lateral movement, single witness, 2013, Normandy, GEIPAN D1

Key points

• The witness observed a single dark, pebble-shaped object hovering above the Menil-Hubert-sur-Orne cemetery at approximately 23:45 on May 29, 2013, during a clear night.p.1
• The object bore four red lights — two at the front and two at the rear, the rear lights slightly larger — and emitted a high-pitched buzzing sound the witness could not identify.p.2
• Witness estimated the object's diameter at 25 meters and its thickness at approximately 1 meter, hovering at about 30 meters altitude above the cemetery.p.7
• Azimuth trajectory ran from 351 degrees at 20 degrees elevation to 314 degrees at 8 degrees elevation as the object drifted northwest, covering 37 degrees of sky before vanishing behind terrain.p.6
• The investigator calculated that if the object had descended to ground level it would have covered the full length of the cemetery — approximately 66 meters.p.7
• Both proposed hypotheses — atmospheric reentry and Thai lanterns — were rejected by the investigator; atmospheric reentry was ruled out partly because the BOAM national UAP database returned no corroborating reports for the date and region.p.9
• The case had only one witness and no photographic or video evidence, which the investigator cited as limiting its evidentiary weight.p.9
• GEIPAN classified the case D1 (unexplained), assigning a consistency score of 0.65 and a strangeness score of 0.55.p.10

Verbatim

• C'était un bruit assez aigu, mais... je ne peux pas trop... en fait il faudrait que j'écoute des milliers de sons différents ou des centaines de sons pour vraiment reconnaître, parce que c'était pas un bruit trop habituel si vous voulez...

  p.2

• Cette observation est d'un degré d'étrangeté moyenne car elle ne correspond pas aux méprises classiques. La forme en galet signalée par le témoin est inhabituelle dans les signalements de PAN.

  p.9

• Il n'y a aucune raison de douter de la sincérité du témoin, mais il faut noter qu'il est seul à avoir déclaré l'observation du phénomène, et qu'il n'y a pas de photo ou vidéo : ce qui rend le cas moyennement consistant, d'autant plus que la description faite par le témoin est sommaire.

  p.9

• Cette observation étrange, moyennement consistante est classée D1 comme phénomène inexpliqué.

  p.10

Most interesting

• The witness was mid-phone call when he spotted the object; he ended the call to retrieve his camera but the phenomenon disappeared behind treeline before he could film.
• GEIPAN's site reconstruction determined that if the object had landed it would have spanned the full 66-meter length of the cemetery — roughly double the witness's spoken estimate of 25-30 meters.
• The witness shut off his car engine expressly to isolate the object's sound, yet the auditory signature remained so unfamiliar he said he would need to listen to hundreds of sounds to identify it.
• The investigator conducted a physical site reconstruction with the witness on June 11, 2013, deriving GPS coordinates, elevation readings, and azimuth/elevation trajectory data from direct observation of the terrain.
• The BOAM national UAP database was explicitly checked and returned no corroborating sightings for the event date and region — a standard GEIPAN verification step.
• GEIPAN's use of paired quantitative scores — consistency (0.65) and strangeness (0.55) — is a methodological practice that distinguishes its casework from most national UAP investigative offices.