GEIPAN Case 2022-05-51350 — MONTLUEL (01) 14.05.2022

Brief

A civilian stock trader on a nighttime smoking break observed a dark anthracite-grey rectangular object cross the southern sky from west to east over Montluel in roughly 8 seconds (investigator reconstitution puts visibility at 20–28 seconds), silent, showing no lights or trail, with an apparent size of 20x40 mm held at arm's length. The witness described a heat-shimmer-like distortion at the object's perimeter that appeared to part distant clouds as the object passed in front of them. Radar data requested from CNOA (CAPCODA) returned only false tracks approximately 40 km to the south, with no corroborating return. GEIPAN examined retinal persistence as the primary hypothesis — the witness had spent hours staring at a large dark-mode monitor in a completely unlit room immediately before the sighting — but closed the case as Classification D, unidentified after investigation.

Metadata

Agency

GEIPAN / CNES

Release

2007-03-22

Type

PDF • .pdf

Length

27 pages

Classification

Non sensible

Programs

GEIPAN, CNOA, CAPCODA

Tags

rectangular UAP, dark/anthracite, silent, no lights, cloud deformation, heat-shimmer edge effect, low altitude, single witness, France, 2022, GEIPAN Classification D

Key points

• Single witness: civilian stock trader, observed from his apartment balcony at 03:10 on 14 May 2022 in Montluel (Ain, 01); wife and children were asleep.p.7
• Object was anthracite-grey, rectangular, silent, no lights, no trail; apparent size ~20x40 mm at arm's length, comparable to a wine cork.p.8
• Trajectory was rectilinear west to east at constant velocity and constant elevation; witness reported 15°, investigator's on-site inclinometer measured 4°.p.16
• Witness described a heat-shimmer-like distortion at the object's border that caused apparent parting of distant clouds when the object passed in front of them, with the clouds returning intact behind.p.12
• Radar restitution from CNOA (CAPCODA) showed only false tracks ~40 km south of Vienne; no return correlated with the observed UAP.p.5
• Investigator-timed reconstitution placed total visibility at 20–28 seconds, substantially longer than the witness's initial self-timed estimate of approximately 8 seconds.p.12
• Witness characterized the object as appearing two-dimensional — a perfect rectangle with no visible depth or perspective — with an irregular granular bicolor (black and grey) surface texture.p.13
• The observation axis passed over the La Valbonne military camp (68th Artillery Regiment, 16 CAESAR howitzers) and the associated firing range 'Sur les Balmes,' as well as Lyon-Saint-Exupéry airport.p.3
• GEIPAN's principal investigative hypothesis was retinal persistence, grounded in the witness's extended dark-room screen exposure on a large curved monitor immediately prior to the observation.p.9
• Report reference DTN_DA_GP-2024.0012609, Edition 1 Revision 0, dated 13 February 2026; case classification: D — unidentified after investigation.p.1

Verbatim

• Pas de lumière, le rectangle était très sombre

  p.8

• Environ 20x40mm, de la taille d'un bouchon en liège tenu à bout de bras

  p.8

• Aucun bruit silence complet

  p.8

• L'explication la plus rationnelle serait selon moi un phénomène naturel similaire à un trou noir rectangulaire qui se déplace, ou alors un avion militaire ayant la capacité de se dissimuler. Je ne vois pas d'autre explication rationnelle. J'espère que quelqu'un puisse m'apporterez une interprétation plus plausible.

  p.9

• Oui, mon scepticisme est mis à mal, je me pose beaucoup de questions depuis cette observation.

  p.9

• comme quand on conduit sur une route et qu'il fait très chaud on a un effet miroir, ou ce que l'on peut voir quand on fait cuire quelque chose, la chaleur va déformer ce que l'on voit derrière. Ça faisait un petit peu ça, mais sur un petit bord autour de la forme

  p.12

• lorsque ce petit bord, ce petit halo autour passait devant un nuage, alors ce nuage s'écartait et on voyait plus clair en haut défiler et le nuage était intact derrière, ça passait devant et ça déformait la vision derrière et je ne sais pas comment expliquer cela.

  p.13

• J'ai une très bonne vue et je ne sais pas ce que ça peut être

  p.13

Most interesting

• The witness was a night-shift stock trader working at 03:00 on a large curved monitor displaying dark-mode windows in a completely unlit apartment — the precise screen-exposure profile that anchors GEIPAN's retinal-persistence hypothesis.
• On-site elevation measurement by the investigator yielded 4°, not the 15° reported by the witness — a more than three-fold discrepancy that invalidates any distance or speed estimate derived from the witness's own angular data.
• The witness attempted independent distance and speed calculations and tentatively placed the object's flight path along the A42 motorway corridor connecting Lyon to the Bugey nuclear plant; GEIPAN's analysis showed the geometric assumption was flawed.
• A reconstitution photograph taken at 03:12 — two minutes after the sighting — failed to capture clouds over the Alps that were clearly visible to the naked eye, illustrating the dynamic-range gap between a smartphone sensor and human night vision.
• The witness described the object's surface texture as a fixed irregular grain — like a carpet woven from two colors, black and grey — rather than a uniform grey, and attempted to recreate it in Photoshop without satisfactory results.
• The observation axis passed over both the La Valbonne military firing range ('Sur les Balmes') and the runways of Lyon-Saint-Exupéry airport, though GEIPAN established no causal connection to either.
• The object appeared to occlude the upper portion of the Montluel collegiate church steeple, providing the investigator with a near-field depth reference for the trajectory reconstruction.
• Despite a DSLR camera in the apartment and a smartphone 1.5–2 metres away, the witness chose not to attempt photography, correctly reasoning that unlocking the phone and opening the camera app would outlast the sighting window.