GEIPAN Case 2014-01-08689 — THEY-SOUS-MONTFORT (88) 28.01.2014

Brief

At approximately 22:15 local time on 28 January 2014, a woman walking her dog in They-sous-Montfort (Vosges, France) observed a luminous red sphere estimated at 10–20 cm diameter traverse a village street at first-floor window height, hover motionless for 30–40 seconds directly in front of her living-room window, reverse course with a visible reddish-blue tail, then accelerate violently skyward after a single audible metallic click and vanish instantly. The GEIPAN investigator conducted a cognitive-protocol interview and on-site reconstruction in August 2014, supplemented by meteorological and astronomical annexes; no lightning strikes were recorded in the region by the Météorage network on that date, removing the standard atmospheric precursor for ball lightning. All conventional explanations — laser, drone, hallucination — were rated very low probability; ball lightning was rated low-to-medium on morphological grounds only, with no factual grounding. GEIPAN classified the case D1 (unexplained) with consistency 0.70 and strangeness 0.65, withholding D2 solely for lack of a corroborating independent witness.

Metadata

Agency

GEIPAN / CNES

Release

2007-03-22

Type

PDF • .pdf

Length

15 pages

Classification

UNCLASSIFIED

Programs

GEIPAN

Tags

red luminous sphere, reddish-blue tail, low-altitude, silent, hover, violent acceleration, ball lightning hypothesis, GEIPAN D1, France, Vosges, 2014, visual observation, single witness

Key points

• A single civilian witness (T1) observed the phenomenon for approximately 2–3 minutes starting at ~22:15 local time on 28 January 2014 at latitude 48.218°N, altitude ~360 m in They-sous-Montfort (88800), in overcast, foggy winter conditions with no other persons or vehicles present.p.1
• The UAP appeared first as a luminous red halo at the end of the street, resolved into a bright red sphere moving silently at very low altitude along the village road, and came to a sustained hover of 30–40 seconds directly in front of the witness's living-room window.p.2
• A short reddish-blue tail was visible only during the return phase; the witness could not explain why it had not been perceptible during the initial approach or the stationary hover.p.3
• The sole auditory event was a single brief metallic 'click' immediately preceding a violent diagonal acceleration and instant disappearance; no engine noise, hum, or other sound was detected at any other point.p.4
• T1's 7-year-old Boxer showed no reaction during or after the observation; the investigator noted the dog was observably calm and sociable during the site visit, corroborating T1's account of the animal's indifference.p.3
• GEIPAN's formal hypothesis table rated laser and drone 'very low' and hallucination 'very low'; ball lightning was rated 'low to medium' on morphological similarity alone — shape, color, silent low-altitude movement, sudden disappearance — but with no factual grounding.p.7
• No lightning strikes were recorded by the Météorage network in the region on 28 January 2014, directly undermining the primary candidate hypothesis; infrared satellite imagery confirms dense overcast but no storm system.p.14
• The witness's estimated sphere diameter of 10–20 cm was derived from comparison with the known dimensions of the window in her field of view at a confirmed close range of approximately 15 m.p.5
• GEIPAN classified the case D1 (unexplained) rather than D2 due to the absence of an independent corroborating witness; the report explicitly states this is a deficiency in consistency, not a finding against T1's credibility.p.8
• GEIPAN assigned the case a consistency score of 0.70 and a strangeness score of 0.65, both recorded in the formal classification block.p.8

Verbatim

• Je sortais mon chien aux alentours de 22h15 et j'étais positionnée dans un verger en hauteur, face à ma maison, quand une lumière rouge très lumineuse, comme un phare de voiture, est apparue au bout de la rue, légèrement en hauteur elle aussi .

  p.1

• Plus rien, tout a disparu d'un coup, sans laisser aucune trace !

  p.1

• T1 se sent incapable d'interpréter son observation qui lui parait insensée.

  p.2

• T1 n'en a pas parlé par peur d'être prise pour une illuminée.

  p.2

• T1 explique qu'elle ne savait pas comment décrire ce bruit qui en fait était bref et sec, comme une vitesse qu'on enclenche (sur un dérailleur de vélo). Un bruit plutôt métallique (choc).

  p.4

• J'évoque la foudre globulaire comme étant, pour l'heure, une explication potentiellement envisageable mais qui reste quasi aussi mal connue que les PAN.

  p.5

• Le GEIPAN classe ce cas comme inexpliqué (catégorie D1) , car la description est détaillée, l'observation plutôt étrange et faite dans de bonnes conditions.

  p.8

Most interesting

• The sphere hovered at the exact height and lateral alignment of the witness's living-room window for 30–40 seconds — a positional specificity T1 could neither explain as deliberate targeting nor dismiss as coincidence, and which she raised unprompted with the investigator.
• The two witness sketches (Annex 03) show the sphere with and without its tail; a note from the investigator clarifies that the blue contour visible in the drawings is an artifact of the blue ballpoint pen used, not an observed blue outer ring — only the tail itself had blue iridescence.
• The document contains an internal coordinate discrepancy: on-site investigation notes (page 2) record longitude 7.972°E, while the formal GEIPAN synthesis table (page 6) records 5.972°E for the same observation location.
• T1 waited roughly four months before contacting GEIPAN — not from fear but from a desire to understand — and chose to report exclusively to GEIPAN because she distrusted forums and other UAP organizations.
• The investigator explicitly proposed ball lightning to T1 during the on-site visit while acknowledging it 'remains almost as poorly understood as UAP' — an unusual moment of epistemic symmetry in an official investigative record.
• The Météorage lightning-strike network recorded zero impacts across the entire region on 28 January 2014, removing the standard atmospheric precursor for ball lightning despite the hypothesis's morphological fit with the described phenomenon.
• T1 noted a possible post-observation headache but remained genuinely uncertain; the investigator logged it without evidential weight, alongside T1's confirmation that her computer had been switched off before she went outside — eliminating one potential electromagnetic interference variable.
• The GEIPAN report took approximately 21 months to finalize — from the May 2014 questionnaire receipt to the 6 October 2015 report date — in part because the investigation was formally relaunched in July 2015 after T1 questioned whether her case was still considered worth pursuing.