Venus mistaken for a UFO in Barrême

Summary

Between 10:30 and 11:30 PM on a May 1983 evening, seven witnesses in Barrême watched a slowly moving luminous ball that repeatedly vanished. Through binoculars, some discerned triangular shapes and varied lights. The gendarmerie gathered testimony, though the direction chart proved confusing, conflating the observation angle with the object's perceived movement. A comet was suggested but ruled out by astronomers.

GEIPAN's later review established that the phenomenon was Venus, positioned exactly where the witnesses described. The confusion stemmed not from visual perception itself but from interpretation, shaped by the mountainous terrain and surprise. The case was reclassified from C to PAN A, confirming a misidentification of a known astronomical object.