◆ SpookStack

Antananarivo. It was seen by several hundred witnesses. At 1700 hours, when the personnel of the Air France office were waiting for the mail to arrive, someone spotted a “/arge” green “ball” in the sky moving at high speed. The first thought of the witnesses was that it was a meteorite. The phenomenon disappeared behind a hill, and they thought that the green ball was going to crash into the ground and that they were going to feel the impact. However, it reappeared after a minute. In passing directly over the observers, it revealed itself to be “a sort of metal rugby ball preceded by a clearly detached green lens[{-shaped portion] with sparks issuing from the rear.” In the estimation of the witnesses, the “ball” was the length of a DC4 airplane, or some forty meters long. The green lens[-shaped portion] separated itself [and remained] a little less than 40 m out in front, with fairly long sparks [coming out] in the rear. The craft flew over Antananarivo at an estimated height of 50 to 100 meters, an estimation that was made possible by comparison with the height of a nearby hill. When the craft was moving, shop lights went out, and animals exhibited a real anxiety. After having flown over Antananarivo, the craft departed in a westerly direction. When it flew over the zebu park in the town, the craft caused a violent fright reaction among them. This is a surprising detail, since normally these animals do not show any agitation when Air France planes pass by. Two or three minutes later, an identical craft was observed 150 km from there above a farm school. There, too, the herds were overcome with panic. If the craft sighted was the same one as the one in Antananarivo, its speed would have had to be on the order of 3000 km/h. According to C’s account, General Fleurquin, Commander-in-Chief in Madagascar, assembled a “scientific commission” to conduct an investigation into these phenomena. No trace of this investigation could be found in the Air Force archives; however, GEPA (Groupe d’Etudes des Phenoménes Aérospatiaux [Aerospace Phenomena Study Group]) bulletin no. 6 of the 2nd half of 1964 described this sighting. 3.2 Sighting by a Pilot of a Saucer Close to the Ground (December 9, 1979) GEPAN/SEPRA investigation and testimony before the committee At the time of the incident, former Air Force Lieutenant-Colonel Jean-Pierre Fartek (F) was a Mirage III pilot in the 2nd fighter squadron at Dijon. F is currently a pilot for a private company. F was living, and still lives, in the same village near Dijon. His house is located at the end of a housing development looking out onto fields. Approximately 250 m away is a grove of trees with an average height of 15 mat maximum. On December 9, 1979, at around 9:15 a.m., F and his wife saw an unusual object (hereinafter called M) in the field near their house. The weather and visibility were excellent. M, the dimensions of which they estimated to be 20 m in diameter by 7 m thick, was hovering approximately 3 m above the ground in front of the grove of trees, which partially concealed it. In complete agreement with his wife, witness F described it as: - having the shape of two superposed saucers with very distinct contours inverted one on top of the other and not exhibiting any portholes or lights, - being metallic gray on the upper portion and darker (bluish) on the lower portion, with a perfectly delimited separation between the upper side and the underside of the craft. This color difference could not be due to a difference in lighting given the position of the sun, - in constant motion as a result of very slight oscillations, the frequency of which was not very rapid, like something trying to balance,