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Case of Didenheim, on November 5, 1990:

Case number:

ALSACAT-1990-11-05-DIDENHEIM-1

Summary:

On the web forum Ufologie & Paranormal, on August 3, 2009, "Dam" said he is communicating the testimony of "Niela", a rewsident of Didenheim, indicating that he had to insist a little to get it from him, because the latter did not want to be disturbed by disturbers:

"Niela" is quoted as reporting that around 7 p.m. on November 5, 1990, he was reading, sitting, one shoulder against the window, in his kitchen located at the back of a building at 18 rue des Careers in Didenheim. The window, which faced northeast, was to his right.

Suddenly he became aware of a movement out of his field of vision, he looked up and saw towards the northeast at 70-80° on the horizon three round white lights which looked like three spotlights white lights behind frosted glass. It seemed very close, he compares it to an "Airbus at 200m landing without landing lights (but where?)."

He reports that the light was soft and slightly bluish, the whole forming an isosceles triangle whose base was rather longer than the other two sides which occupied about 60° at arm's length. He immediately had an impression of strangeness that took him a while to identify: it looked like an airplane landing at the start of the runway, but the noise was missing.

The object slid northeast and disappeared behind trees on top of a nearby hill towards Bellevue Street. As it moved away he had noticed a fourth light which looked like a white cylinder rsembleing neon tube; which was comparable in length to the base of the triangle and which seemed to be directed backwards relative to the movement of the object.

He had the strong impression that it was going to fall on Mulhouse, so much so that he called his wife, shouting "come quickly, there is a UFO." Then he phoned a friend who is a ufology buff to tell him "go out on your balcony, you're going to catch a UFO coming towards you"... The friend did so but only stayed for a few seconds on the balcony and saw nothing because the portion of sky he could watch was too narrow.

Nilea does not venture to estimate the speed of the object, but it seemed to him that it had crossed 80 to 90 degrees of the sky in 5 or 6 seconds.

In his memories, when it was at 45° above the horizon, it passed by the Coteaux incinerator.

A few days later, he found two other witnesses, adult men who were at the Louis Armand high school.

He then found it most strange that the two men had been flown over vertically by a huge craft which seemed to them to be dotted with red lights, which had three round orange lights and in the center a ball of some kind of fire orange speckled with white, a gigantic thing "that covered the whole sky for them when it passed over them."

One of them recalled that when the object moved away, the central orange ball began to look like "the nozzle of a fighter plane in afterburner."

These two witnesses being about 1700 meters from him, if the object was really at 45° on the horizon for him when it passed over them, then, "Niela" estimates, it was about 1700 m altitude and its dimensions were counted in hundreds of meters while its speed was very low for such a large craft.

He thinks that since they had seen the object vertically whereas for him it was at 45° from the horizon, this totally excludes an object at an altitude of 80 km (meaning: the rocket debris that passed exactly there at that time), and he concludes that it was indeed a "UFO", or that there had been both the rocket debris and a UFO.

Data:

Temporal data:

Geographical data:

Witnesses data:

Ufology data:

Classifications:

Sources:

[Ref. upl1:] WEB BOARD "UFOLOGIE ET PARANORMAL":

[Ref. gei1:] "GROUPE D'ETUDES ET D'INFORMATIONS SUR LES PHENOMENES AEROSPATIAUX NON IDENTIFIES":

In their documentation on the cases of November 5, 1990, around 7 p.m. over France, the GEIPAN published this map of the trajectory of the rocket debris, and a simulation of the view of their passage over Mulhouse:

Discussion:

The links to "Google Maps" maps given in the report do not work; however it is possible to reconstruct maps of the places, especially since I lived in Brunstatt for years and know the area like the back of my hand.

The first place is the situation of the witness who speaks, who is "in my kitchen located at the back of a building" at 18 rue des Carrières in Didenheim. This witness is therefore behind one of the windows of this building:

The two men at the "Louis Armand" were not 1,700 meters from the first witness but between 1,100 and 1,500 meters from him in straight line. If they were in the schoolyard, they were 1370 meters away from him.

However, despite this slight distance error, the reasoning of the first witness is correct. It is perfectly obvious that if at the same time he sees the thing at an elevation of 45° and the two men see the thing at an elevation of 90° ("above them"), then the thing is not 80 kilometers above the ground. At a distance of 80 km, the thing would be seen with almost the same elevation by witnesses distant from 100 or 1700 meters.

The reason the witness mentioned these "80 kilometres", was obviously to allude to the explanation of the sighting by the re-entry of rocket debris. These 80 kilometers are the approximate altitude, the one where they begin to burn up in the very high layers of the atmosphere. Then there is a descent, of course.

But while I understand the reasoning, I doubt, not the description of the first witness, but the precision of the report of the two men at the Louis Armand. Here is why:

• If there had been a "real UFO" in addition to the reentry of the rocket debris, how could they not have seen also the reentry of the rocket debris, reentry which is widely proven.
• When the two men say the thing "covered the whole sky for them", it is pretty obvious they were exaggerating. Otherwise, how could it not have been also vertical to the first witness? The fact is that the first witness gives an angular size that would be that of an "Airbus at 200m", which is far from covering "the whole sky." Or else, maybe this "whole sky" was supposed to mean a reduced portion of sky visible for them.
• For the first witness, the elevation goes from about "70-80°" to 45° then 0° during the observation. For the other two witnesses, there is only one elevation given, 90°, which would be the translation of "above them".
• The description is the same. We find, as everywhere in Alsace, the three big lights (the "triangle") followed by the "neon tube" or "projector". The first witness and the two men at the High School saw the same thing as all those who "saw", even filmed, the rocket debris from Alsace.
• The strict simultaneity of the two observations is not really established. For the first witness, we get: "around 7 p.m."; for the other two, we do not know anything.
• No UFO investigation was conducted; for me, this would be a prerequisite for any questioning of the rocket debris explanation.

I think when the two men said the thing went "above" them, it was not worth a strict 90° translation. From where they were placed, they could see the rocket debris coming in from the southwest long before the first witness could see it; they were hidden from him by the sides of his building. This first witness describes the passage well, with its slow descent towards the horizon; the other two witnesses give no description of the movement of the thing. They are certainly exaggerating when they say that it "covered the whole sky" for them, and it is reasonable to think that "above" was to be taken with a grain of salt as well. "Above me" does not necessarily always mean "at the wenith", sometimes it must be understood as "higher than me".

Of the 26 accounts I have documented that can be linked to the re-entry of Russian rocket debris on November 11, 1990 around 7 p.m. as seen from Alsace, there are few such anomalies; but it is evident that once in a while there must have been some anomaly of direction or elevation in these reports. It was, I think, inevitable; this also happens with meteors. Times, directions, elevations are generally consistent, but not always hundred percent consistent.

What is certain is that if a "real UFO" had passed there at 7 p.m., it is incredible that the remains of the Russian rocket were not also seen. It was impossible to miss it from Didenheim or from the Louis Armand high school!

Above: Passage of the Russian rocket debris over the Haut-Rhin.

Evaluation:

Space junk re-entry of November 5, 1990.

Sources references:

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

• [upl1] * Message by "Dam" in the UFO forum Ufologie & Paranormal, France, August 3, 2009, at http://www.ufologie-paranormal.org/t2144-le-5-novembre-1990
• [gei1] * In "Nouvelle simulation de la rentrée atmosphérique du 5 novembre 1990", by the "Groupe d'Etudes et d'Informaions sur les Phénomènes Aérospatiaux Non-Identifiés" (GEIPAN), public service, France, March 10, 2015, at http://www.cnes-geipan.fr/index.php?id=181&no_cache=1&tx_ttnews[backPid]=211&tx_ttnews[tt_news]=183

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