These cases of UFO phenomena which remain unexplained

• ET hasn't aged a bit, it must be said that he already had a very wrinkled face 40 years ago.

  On the occasion of the anniversary of its theatrical release in France on December 1, 1982,

  20 Minutes

  returns to extraterrestrial phenomena explained or not.

• In France, 95 unexplained UFO cases remain, despite investigations by the study and information group on unidentified aerospace phenomena (Geipan), eight of which occurred in the sky of the Nord department.

• We take you to Premesques, Ledringhem and Lambersart, where the Geipan broke its teeth and classified these phenomena in category “D”: unexplained.

This Thursday, it is 40 years to the day that Steven Spielberg's film,

, was released in French cinemas.

If the special effects that brought the crumpled little creature to life seem a little dated today, they certainly impressed viewers back then.

However, nothing mysterious in there, just the magic of cinema.

On the other hand, what remains mysterious are the 98 unexplained cases of UFOs listed in France by the Geipan (study and information group on unidentified aerospace phenomena).

For those who do not know, the Geipan, formerly Gepan, is a completely official and serious structure (unlike the Canal+ series), attached to the no less serious Cnes, National Center for Space Studies.

Since its creation in 1977, the organization has been studying unidentified aerospace phenomena (UAP) by collecting testimonies and conducting investigations.

Of the nearly 3,000 files processed in 45 years, only 95 have been classified in category “D”, that of unexplained phenomena, including eight in the North.

returns to three of them.

The father, his sons and the orange ball of light

The first case, one of the oldest, dates back to November 11, 1963, in Premesques, between Armentières and Lille.

The strange phenomenon was observed by a father and his two sons, in the middle of the day, while they were walking on a country lane bordered by fields.

"It looked like a very big ''star'', brighter than Venus and more extensive", reported, in 2008, the eldest son, aged 18 on the day of the events.

“A luminous orange ball is stationary below dark clouds for more than a minute.

In rotation thereafter, it oscillates from right to left for a few seconds before disappearing at very high speed in the clouds according to a rectilinear curved trajectory upwards”, summarizes the Geipan investigator.

If the testimony was slow to arrive at the Geipan, it was nonetheless taken seriously.

The phenomenon upset the lives of the three witnesses, so much so that the father was still talking about it shortly before his death, 30 years later.

However, neither the weather analyzes nor the speed calculations have made it possible to find a rational explanation.

The phenomenon was thus classified D1, "unexplained, moderately consistent, but with a marked strangeness".

The septuagenarian and the spinning cylinder

The second “D1” case occurred much later, on April 17, 2011, in Ledringhem, near Dunkirk.

The phenomenon was observed in the early evening, around 8:30 p.m., by a 70-year-old man.

“The witness heard a dull sound of a turbine coming from the sky and saw in the air an object circulating at high speed and passing flush with the ridge of the roof of his home in a straight trajectory”, details the local Geipan investigator.

The object in question was described to the gendarmes by the witness as a cylinder 80 cm long by 30 cm wide, black, producing neither smell, nor noise, nor light.

The sighting was not supported by any photos or other evidence.

Nevertheless, the septuagenarian has never distorted his story during multiple interrogations.

The Geipan investigator hypothesized a “resemblance to a drone”, stressing however that such a model did not exist.

In the absence of a coherent explanation, this PAN was classified among the unidentified cases.

The insomniac and the transparent spheres

The latest “D1” case in the North is also the most troubling and detailed.

We are in 2012, June 17, around 4 am, at the home of an insomniac resident of the town of Lambersart, near Lille.

Annoyed at not having been taken seriously by the gendarmes, the witness, a 60-year-old man, contacted the Geipan.

“I think what I saw didn't seem very 'natural' to me and that's why I wanted to let you know,” he explains.

At first, the witness thinks of birds.

“Very quickly, I realize that it is not a flight of ducks.

It is a formation composed of transparent spheres slightly illuminated on the left flank.

It flies in a very orderly and symmetrical order,” he describes.

This time, the Geipan investigation is very well documented: weather, air traffic, astronomical situation, environment... Nothing matches.

"The physical and dynamic characteristics of the objects described by the witness do not resemble a priori any characteristic of known objects", concludes the investigator.

If the hypothesis of objects carried by the wind is mentioned for a time, it is quickly ruled out by calculations estimating the size of the spheres, between 44 and 68 m in diameter, and the speed, between 751 and 1,029 km / h .

The origin of these objects therefore remains a mystery.

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• Hauts-de-France

• UFO

• CNES

• Extraterrestrial

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