GEIPAN Case 1988-12-01156 — RUES-DES-VIGNES (LES) (59) 16.12.1988

Brief

At approximately 23:50 on December 16, 1988, a literature student driving alone on a departmental road near Cambrai reported observing a round, domed, silent object stationary above a plowed field — estimated 10 meters in diameter, 20 meters in altitude, roughly 30 meters from the road edge — with 4 to 6 large lamps illuminating the field below. She filed a report with the local gendarmerie the following day. Officers conducted a site inspection on December 18 with the witness and found no physical traces. The case was taken up by GEPAN/GEIPAN and received its highest unexplained classification, category D.

Metadata

Agency

GEIPAN / CNES

Release

2007-03-22

Type

PDF • .pdf

Length

11 pages

Classification

GEIPAN Category D (Unexplained); released UNCLASSIFIED

Programs

GEIPAN, GEPAN, SEPRA

Tags

disc-shaped, hovering, silent, multiple underside lights, night sighting, France, 1988, Nord (59), Cambrai region, GEIPAN

Key points

• Single civilian witness: a female literature student driving alone on a departmental road near Cambrai at approximately 23:50 on December 16, 1988.p.4
• Object described as round with a slightly domed top, resembling a flat plate covered by an inverted hollow plate, with an estimated diameter of 10 meters.p.4
• Object was stationary approximately 30 meters from the road edge and 20 meters above a plowed field, and remained silent throughout the observation.p.4
• 4 or 6 large lights were visible on the underside of the object, illuminating the field below.p.2
• A nearby house described as abandoned showed lights during the sighting; gendarmerie noted it was used occasionally for military exercises, adding an unresolved secondary element.p.2
• Gendarmerie officers conducted a site inspection on December 18, 1988, accompanied by the witness; no physical traces were recovered from the plowed field.p.2
• The witness initially mistook the distant lights for a tractor working in the fields before approaching to close range and revising her interpretation.p.4
• Witness explicitly stated she had consumed no alcohol before or during the drive.p.4
• Meteorological data from a nearby station was collected as part of the investigation.p.11
• The photographic record includes general views of the road, the plowed field, and close-ups of the site identified as 'Ferme Allemande,' where the witness first perceived the lights.p.8

Verbatim

• Je peux vous jures que je n'avais bu sucune goutte dtaloool

  p.4

• L'el gin avait un d i a m b t s e de 10 mètres au plus

  p.4

• il h une fornia sonde, 186 n t bombe aur l e desauil, e t dclaim l e champ avm 4 OU 6 grosseisr 1anipia

  p.2

• Le Dix Huit DQcembre Mi1 Neuf Carnt Qaatlee Vingt Huit Heuf heume, noue noua transportons ewr l e s lieux, en oanepagnie de Hile P

  p.2

Most interesting

• The witness's initial misidentification of the lights as a tractor is notable: she only revised her interpretation after sustained approach and close observation, reinforcing the credibility of her final account.
• A nearby house described as abandoned showed interior lights during the sighting; gendarmerie noted it was used sporadically for military exercises — a detail that was logged but not resolved in the file.
• Despite inspecting the plowed field in daylight on December 18 with the witness guiding officers to the exact location, gendarmerie recovered zero physical trace evidence.
• GEIPAN's category D is its highest-tier unexplained classification, reserved for cases that resist resolution after full investigation, including analysis of meteorological, astronomical, and prosaic explanations.
• The document is a gendarmerie procès-verbal — a formal legal instrument carrying evidentiary weight under French law — distinguishing this account from a casual incident report.
• The photographic record documents the site under the local place-name 'Ferme Allemande' (German Farm), providing a fixed geographic anchor that would allow future researchers to revisit the location.
• The case file was released publicly on March 22, 2007, as part of GEIPAN's landmark open-access disclosure of its full UAP archive — one of the first such government disclosures anywhere in the world.