◆ SpookStack

small mirrors stuck to its polystyrene casing were for reflecting the show’s lighting effects... 5.2 A Bright Glow in a Village in the Dombes Region (March 10, 1979) GEPAN/SEPRA investigation On March 13, 1979, the local [gendarmerie] force of a small village in the Dombes region was alerted by an inhabitant who said he had seen an unidentified flying object over the town during the night of March 10 to 11. In the course of its investigation, the [gendarmerie] force recorded a total of four testimonies, three of which were totally independent of one another. The first witness, a restaurateur in the village, described the phenomenon as a bluish and purplish luminous mass slightly oval in shape and around 15 meters in length. The light was so bright that the village square was lit up as if it were broad daylight, to such a degree that the public lighting, which goes on automatically, went out. Two other witnesses, who were in a car close to the village, reported that this luminous mass preceded their vehicle on the road about 2 m ahead of them. They informed the gendarmes that this light went out suddenly after an orange-colored light appeared on each side of the glow. Finally, a fourth witness, a fish farmer, said he had been awakened that night by a dull noise and had seen a bright bluish glow. The next day, all the fish in one of his fish (------- ) tanks, catfishes, were found dead. The presence of a power line hanging over the tank enabled the gendarmes to focus their investigation on phenomena of an electrical origin. GEPAN/SEPRA did the same during the investigation that it conducted on the site a few days later. It discovered very quickly that the 10-kV power line hanging over the tank had melted. The information provided by [the French electricity company] EDF enabled them to demonstrate that since this line was some thirty years old, it was very likely that corrosion and oxidation of the aluminum wires had caused a power arc effect in the line, probably in conjunction with a corona effect. This would explain, on the one hand, the bluish glow and the noise heard by the witness and, on the other hand, the public lighting going out. The glow was, in fact, bright enough to trigger the photoelectric control cell, which was located close to the melted line. Finally, the fish died as a result of being poisoned by drops of aluminum that fell in the tank for several minutes. PART 2 The Extent of Our Knowledge Chapter 6 - Organization of the Research in France In 1977, the Centre National d’Etudes Spatiales was tasked with the mission of setting up a permanent structure for the study of unidentified aerospace phenomena (UAP): the Groupe d’Etudes de Phénoménes Aérospatiaux Non Identifiés (GEPAN). This