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Case of Saverne, on January 3, 1979:

Case number:

ALSACAT-1979-01-03-SAVERNE-1

Summary:

The regional newspaper Les Derniers Nouvelles d'Alsace for January 7, 1979, reported that a "trustworthy elderly couple from Saverne" claimed to have seen a UFO in the sky of Saverne, "Wednesday", therefore January 3, 1979, around 6:30 in the morning. From their home, in the rue du Haut-Barr, they had noticed a scintillating object, remaining in place for nearly an hour above the trees at the height of the place called "Pulverkeller". They had plenty of time to distinguish, "even with binoculars, this object which launched fires, an orange ball changing position and placing itself successively at the three vertices of a triangle."

At exactly 7:38 a.m., the UFO had started to move away, heading towards the mountain in the direction of Reinhardsmunster-Molsheim before "disappearing."

The newspaper added that the Saverne gendarmerie was carrying out an investigation, since the UFO phenomenon is taken very seriously by the authorities, and that a specialist in unidentified flying objects "came especially to Saverne", to be, "during this week-end, available to people who may also have witnessed it."

The ufological literature as far as I know would make only two mentions of the sighting, without any details other than the date, time and place.

Then around 2014, the "G.E.I.P.A.N.", service of the Center National des Etudes Spatiales then in charge of the question of unidentified aerospace phenomena, published on the one hand their summary of the case, noting that the witnesses had probably made an astronomical observation of Venus particularly visible in the sky at this time (magnitude 4.46) according to their sky chart; but also, they published the anonymized report of the Gendarmerie finalized on January 8, 1979.

The Gendarmes explained that on January 8, 1979, following various information collected by telephone on January 6, 1978, about sightings of unidentified flying objects, they had begun an investigation. They had heard that an elderly couple had observed a mysterious object in the sky on January 3, 1979. On January 8, 1979, they heard "Mademoiselle D. J.", a retired SNCF employee, who told them that on January 3, 1979, by opening the shutters, with her sister Mrs. B. R., they had observed a brilliant object in the sky in the South-South-East.

The lady explained that the sky was very clear, there were no stars, the day had not yet risen.

She took theater binoculars and saw that the object had the shape of a spray of sparks resembling the starry "top" that one puts on Christmas trees, but much longer, and that there was a ruby-colored half-sphere, sometimes to the right, sometimes below and above, but never to the left of this shower of sparks. She had extended her arm "and from a distance taken on my hand, the object measured about 14 centimeters."

She explained that she could not judge the angle from which she was seeing the object, nor how far away it might be. It was above the trees, about 49 centimeters above the "[-]".

To know the exact time, she had called the speaking clock, and it was 6:50 a.m., the observation lasting until 7:38 a.m., when the object appeared between the branches of a cherry tree, slightly to their right, which allowed them to see that it had moved.

She indicated that the object had become smaller and smaller as the day broke, only a small dot could be distinguished then, and that it "disappeared completely" at 8 a.m.

They had not perceived any noise, the brightness of the object was cold, no radiation illuminated the surroundings, the flickering was white. When it left, it was still moving at the same height and to the south.

As a "couple", the other witness was the lady's sister. She was present when the witnesses heard Miss "D. J.", and having listened to her words, she simply confirmed to the Gendarmes that everything was true.

The gendarmes had inquired about the possible presence of weather balloons at the airfield weather station, and they learned that on January 3, 1979 the winds were fast at high altitude, around 150 knots and 90 to 100 knots on the ground, blowing in a North-West and North-North-West direction.

The weather service informed them that the French meteorological sounding balloons were launched in principle around noon, that they could, weighed down by the frost, drift slowly and very far.

The Gendarmes, or this weather service, it is not clear, commented that the object described was most likely "a meteorite" or a comet, "because the hairy part was always opposite the sun."

Data:

Temporal data:

Geographical data:

Witnesses data:

Ufology data:

Classifications:

Sources:

[Ref. dna1:] NEWSPAPER "DERNIERES NOUVELLES D'ALSACE":

[Ref. gen1:] GENDARMERIE NATIONALE:

[Ref. mft1:] "FRANCAT" - MICHEL FIGUET:

[Ref. eae1:] ERIC ANTOINE:

[Ref. gei1:] GROUPE D'ETUDES ET D'INFORMATIONS SUR LES PHENOMENES AEROSPATIAUX NON IDENTIFIES (G.E.I.P.A.N.):

[Ref. cvn2:] CHRISTIAN VALENTIN:

Former journalist Christian Valentin published in 2012 a very interesting book telling the story of UFO sightings, flying saucers sightings, in Alsace, from the beginning to 1980.

In this book, he wrote that the newspaper DernièrEs Nouvelles d'Alsace for Sunday, Jaunuary 7, 1979, published this article on the sighting in Saverne on Wednesday, January 3, 1979:

[Ref. spa1:] UFOLOGY ASSOCIATION "SPICA":

Discussion:

All locations are censored in the Gendarmerie report, but the newspaper sheds some light on them. We therefore know that they were in Saverne at their home, in the rue du Haut-Barr, a street leaving Saverne to its south-west. The object was "for almost an hour above the trees at the height of the place called Pulverkeller" ("powder cellar").

Unfortunately, this "Pulverkeller" does not appear on any map I have, nor on the official Fantoir listing (addresses.data.gouv.fr/fantoir).

We are also told that at 7:38 a.m. "exactly, the UFO had started to move away, heading to the mountain in the direction of Reinhardsmunster-Molsheim".

"Reinhardsmunster-Molsheim" does not exist, there is on the one hand Reinhardsmunster, at 199° of the witnesses, and Molsheim, at 152° of the witnesses.

This "towards the mountain" is amazing. If one can think that the object moved "towards the mountain" while going in the direction of Reinhardsmunster, it is that it drifted towards the right of the witnesses. But Molsheim on the other hand is much more to their left, and if the object had passed from the Reinhardsmunster direction towards Molsheim, it would not have gone "towards the mountain" but would have moved away from the mountain to go to the plain.

I can check where Venus was during the observation.

At 6:50 a.m., at the start of the observation, Venus is at azimuth 141° 45', elevation 17° 24'.

At 8:00 a.m., at the end of the observation, Venus is at azimuth 158° 40', elevation 23° 7'.

Venus had risen at 04:32 a.m., it crosses the meridian at 09:21 a.m., and will set at 02:11 p.m.. Its magnitude was -5.4, with only 41.15% of its surface illuminated.

In all this, what corresponds to the observation is that Venus is there, that it is indeed to the South-South-East, that during the observation it moves but almost horizontally, like the lady said, that its elevation may correspond to a position just above or "in" nearby trees. If it had been much lower, from rue du Haut-Barr, it would have been hidden by the many trees.

Venus moves, little, as the testimony suggests, from the left to the right of the witnesses. This corresponds roughly to Molsheim, and it is "towards the mountain".

There is also a logical explanation for the "disappearance" at 8 a.m.: it is when the day breaks. It is normal for Venus to appear "smaller and smaller" and then "disappear"; it is almost impossible to distinguish it by day.

One thing that doesn't hold at all is this direction of Reinhardsmunster given in the newspaper; it is at 194° from the witnesses, towards the South-South-West. But this is probably not reliable, it can be seen from the fact that the newspaper links "Reinhardsmunster-Molsheim", different places in different directions.

It looks like the lady gave an angled size of 14cm at arm's length. But she must have expressed herself incorrectly, as this would have constituted an absolutely gigantic object or a very very close one. This gives us an angular size of 10 degrees. The angular size of the moon is about half a degree, so the object would have had 20 times the angular size of the Moon... The lady would not have failed to point this out!

The red color, which Venus does not show (it is white, slightly bluish), the "sheaf of sparks" can seem surprising. But the use of unreliable binoculars (theater binoculars) may have been the explanation.

In the end, the Venus explanation seems convincing, especially since the lady did not say she saw both Venus and the UFO.

Evaluation:

Venus.

Sources references:

* = Source is available to me.
? = Source I am told about but could not get so far. Help needed.

• [dna1] * "Un OVNI dans le ciel de Saverne", article in the regional newspaper Dernières Nouvelles d'Alsace, France, January 7, 1979.
• [gen1] * Report by the Gendarmerie Nationale, France, January 8, 1979.
• [noa1] ? Sensationalist magazine Nostradamus, France.
• [mft1] * "Catalogue Francat des Rencontres Rapprochées en France", catalogue by Michel Figuet, in the ufology magazine Lumières Dans La Nuit (LDLN), France, #261-262, page 19, April 1986.
• [aea1] * In "Haut-Rhin: entre Ste Marie-aux-Mines et Aubure", investigation report by Eric Antoine, in the ufology magazine Lumières Dans La Nuit (LDLN), France, #269-270, page 37, November / December 1986.
• [gei1] * "SAVERNE (67) 1979", case record from the ufology database of the "Groupe d'Etude et d'Informations sur les Phénomènes Aérospatiaux Non Identifiés" (GEIPAN), public service, branch of the "Centre National des Etudes Spatiales" (CNES), France, as of January 30, 2014, at http://www.geipan.fr/index.php?id=202&cas=1979-01-00587
• [cvn2] * "Mythes et Réalités des Phénomènes Aériens Non Identifiés - Histoire des soucoupes volantes en Alsace jusqu'en 1980", book by Christian Valentin, Grimoires d'Alsace publishers, France, page 134, 2012.
• [spa1] * "DEPARTEMENT 67 - BAS-RHIN", listing of UFO sighting reports by the Alsatian ufology group SPICA, Alsace, France, not dated, found in May 2015, at http://www.spica.org/Page_Listing_67.htm

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This page was last updated on February 21, 2023.