Incident · 23 April 1978 · Air base 105, Évreux, Eure, France
Évreux air base: duty officer and tower staff see a red light, with a radar echo
Also known as Fauville 1978, Évreux BA105 UFO, Evreux 1978
On the evening of 23 April 1978 the duty officer of the French Air Force base at Évreux and the staff of its control tower watched a red light in the north-western sky, and the base radar picked up a weak echo in the same direction for seven minutes. The French space agency’s UFO office investigated and could not identify it; the echo is weak and unconfirmed by a second radar, which keeps the case at D1.
Source: GEIPAN (CNES), case 1978-04-01879, classified D (unexplained)
Facts and claims
- documented Between 20.35 and 20.51 UT on 23 April 1978 the operational duty officer at air base 105 at Évreux, alerted by a telephone call, watched a red point of light 10° to 15° above the horizon to the north-west; the control-tower staff also saw it as its brightness faded. Source: cnes-geipan.fr (archived)
- documented The officer asked for radar help, and at 20.44 UT the radar recorded an echo bearing 300°, 18 nautical miles away, moving towards 330° at an estimated 30 to 40 knots; the echo was very weak (1/5) but lasted seven minutes, and was not confirmed by the second radar at Cinq-Mars-la-Pile. Source: cnes-geipan.fr (archived)
- documented The GEPAN investigation rejected a helicopter and a balloon, and GEIPAN judges a confusion with Venus “extrêmement peu probable” given the different position, while warning that a false radar echo cannot be ruled out; it classifies the case D1, moderately strange but of good consistency. Source: cnes-geipan.fr (archived)
Connected files
Organizations
- GEIPAN (CNES, France) (investigated by)
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