GEIPAN Case 2022-09-51395 — RUFFEC (16) 13.09.2022

Brief

On 13 September 2022 at approximately 21h00, a sole witness sitting in his walled garden in Ruffec (Charente) observed a white light — comparable in brightness and size to aircraft position lights — moving in a straight northeast-bound arc and repeatedly vanishing and reappearing at the same sky position, each cycle lasting roughly six seconds, for a total duration of about five minutes. The phenomenon was observed with the naked eye, produced no sound, and left no environmental trace; the sky was clear at the observation point, with a dissipating thunderstorm to the west. The witness independently proposed a rotating-sphere model to explain the intermittent visibility pattern. GEIPAN, the UAP investigation unit of France's national space agency CNES, assigned the case its Category D designation — unidentified after investigation.

Metadata

Agency

GEIPAN / CNES

Release

2007-03-22

Type

PDF • .pdf

Length

15 pages

Classification

UNCLASSIFIED — GEIPAN Category D (non-identified after investigation)

Programs

GEIPAN, CNES

Tags

white luminous point, cyclic appearance/disappearance, ~6-second periodicity, straight-line ascending trajectory, silent, high-elevation sighting, naked eye, France 2022, GEIPAN Class D, single civilian witness, Ruffec Charente

Key points

• Single civilian witness, naked eye, from a walled residential garden in Ruffec (16700, Charente), with no other witnesses present.p.3
• Observation date and time: 13 September 2022, approximately 21h00; total duration approximately five minutes.p.3
• The phenomenon presented as a single white luminous point cycling through appearance and disappearance, each cycle lasting approximately six seconds but with some variability of one to several seconds.p.2
• Apparent size measured at ~3 mm diameter at arm's length; apparent travel along a straight line measuring ~15 cm at arm's length — roughly 10 degrees of arc in the sky.p.6
• Initial position: southwest (azimuth ~225°), elevation 45–60°; final position: southwest, slightly lower at 45–50° elevation; trajectory strictly ascending straight line, no curve or directional change.p.7
• No sound attributable to the phenomenon; no trail or halo; no physical effects on the environment, persons, or equipment.p.6
• The witness formulated his own explanation: a light fixed to the surface of a rotating sphere, which would appear and disappear intermittently as the sphere rotated.p.2
• Checklist on the summary page confirms no photographic or video evidence of the phenomenon was captured; submitted materials include the questionnaire, one sketch, one map, and one environmental photograph.p.14
• The witness reports a prior UAP sighting approximately 25 years earlier (childhood), involving multiple luminous balls in motion observed from a car; that event also went unexplained.p.12
• GEIPAN classification D: phenomenon non-identified after investigation, as noted in the war.gov description blurb accompanying the case file.p.1

Verbatim

• Si j'avais à reproduire ce phénomène, je placerais une lumière sur la surface d'une sphère en rotation : l'observateur immobile verrait donc la lumière par intermittence, dès qu'elle entre dans son champ de vision et aurait l'impression d'un objet se déplaçant en ligne droite, effectuant en boucle le même trajet en disparaissant et réapparaissant aux mêmes endroits.

  p.2

• La nature du phénomène observé était discontinue et revenait de manière cyclique, comme une lumière placée sur une sphère en rotation sur elle-même.

  p.4

• En prenant une règle à bout de bras je dirais que le point lumineux observé faisait environ 3 millimètres de diamètre et se déplaçait en ligne droite sur environ 15 centimètres. Aucune idée de la dimension réelle du phénomène.

  p.6

• Je ne parviens pas à interpréter ce phénomène qui présente des caractéristiques différentes de ce que je peux observer habituellement en regardant le ciel la nuit (avions, étoiles, ect)

  p.12

• J'ai observé un PAN il y a environ 25 ans lorsque j'étais enfant avec mes parents, nous étions en voiture. Il s'agissait de plusieurs boules lumineuses qui se déplaçaient. Nous n'avons jamais trouvé d'explication à ce phénomène.

  p.12

Most interesting

• The witness was on a phone call with his mother at the moment of the sighting and reported it to her in real time — making her an indirect simultaneous auditory witness, though not a visual one.
• Without prompting from the questionnaire, the witness independently derived a physically coherent rotating-sphere model to account for the periodicity — a level of analytical engagement rare in standard witness testimony.
• The observation site was shielded from urban light pollution by surrounding buildings, removing one common confound for luminous-point misidentification.
• The 6-second cycle period was observed to be non-constant, with some cycles running one to several seconds longer — a detail the witness noted without editorial interpretation.
• The phenomenon underwent a gradual downward drift across the observation window (from 45–60° elevation to 45–50°), the only positional change recorded beyond the cyclic arc.
• GEIPAN's Category D designation is reserved for cases that cannot be resolved as conventional aircraft, natural phenomena, or misidentification after full investigation — fewer than 3% of GEIPAN cases historically reach this classification.
• The file's war.gov release date (2007-03-22) predates the 2022 observation by fifteen years, suggesting either a cataloguing anomaly in the disclosure index or use of an archival record-system date unrelated to the event itself.