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Case of Tagsdorf, on November 5, 1990:

Case number:

ALSACAT-1995-11-05-TAGSDORF-1

Summary:

By letter on November 11, 1990, a single witness reported his sighting of November 5, 1990, at 07:02 p.m. in Tagsdorf in the Haut-Rhin.

Quotes from the letter indicate that he suddenly saw above him a group of "bodies on fire", the biggest being "the size of a rugby ball" (oval-shaped), of orange color, losing sparks behind it that made "the beginning of the tail of a comet which followed in about 200 meters to then dissipate."

The big body or "balloon" was surrounded by about a dozen small "balls the size of an apple (Moon color)" more numerous on the right side than on the left side.

The smaller bodies were followed by a tail of the same length but less wide than the big one. All the trails were gray colored.

The report is illustrated of this sketch:

This was, of course, one of the numerous sightings of what was absolutely not a "UFO", but the flaming debris of a Russian Proton that crossed the sky of France from the South-West to the North-East on that day and time.

Data:

Temporal data:

Geographical data:

Witnesses data:

Ufology data:

Classifications:

Sources:

[Ref. fme1:] FRANCK MARIE:

The report is illustrated of this sketch:

[Ref. rai1:] ROBERT ALESSANDRI:

Discussion:

On November 5, 1990, one or two minutes after 07:00 p.m., a very commonplace phenomenon occurred, explained, and devoid of any actual strangeness, but it nevertheless started a UFO delirium of some of the French ufologists.

The sightings started with an explosive decay over the Bay of Biscay in France, resulting in combustion fragments seen from afar, and generally, as they approached, seen as a group of three main lights - hence it was called a "triangle" - of large angular size, and followed by trails of smoke and sparks.

Once over land, the thing was seen from different angles and at various distances by people on the ground, which gives a range of quite diverse descriptions.

The thing crossed France following a line approximately from Bordeaux to Strasbourg, in silence, in a straight line without any maneuver, in two to three minutes, reaching Strasbourg at about 07:06 p.m.

There were also sightings reported from the South of England, London, Germany, Czechoslovakia, Poland, but not beyond.

In the evening, several Gendarmerie brigades contacted the National Center for Space Studies to report what people told them. Gendarmes brigades of Angers and Tulle got the chance to see the display themselves. In the evening, the Press service of the armies, SIRPA, confirmed that military pilots had seen something without being able to formally identify it. Near Paris airports of Orly and Roissy, the luminous phenomenon was seen from the control towers. Hundreds or even thousands of civilians reported their sightings to the authorities, the Press and other media.

Radio stations, television channels, newspapers, talk of a UFO, then a meteor, and finally the correct explanation appeared through information given by NASA: it was the entering in the atmosphere of the remains of a Russian Proton rocket launched from the Baikonur space center to put a Gorizont 21 satellite in orbit. Calculations had predicted the fallout of the rocket debris at its 36th orbit, crossing France from the South West to the North East on November 5, 1990 around 07:00 p.m.. SEPRA, then officially in charge of such matters, provided this explanation to news agencies on November 9, 1990.

On November 5, 1990 already, an amateur expert in satellites and space debris impact trajectory calculations, Pierre Neirinck, had seen himself, and had also identified the phenomenon, independently of NASA, as space junk from the Proton rocket.

Any sensible ufologist should have understood what is was from the beginning, given the descriptions, and at least understand thereafter that it was a classical space junk case. But some ufologists refused to hear anything about a rocket and continued to talk and write about it as a "UFO flap", of "400 UFOs" or even "thousands of UFOs", often mixing other, unrelated sightings that were more or less of the same day, sighting who have other explanations. This resulted in the continuing presence of this explained case as massive UFO sightings in some of the UFO literature, and of course this includes observations made in Alsace.

Both the description and the sketch in this case totally match the reentry of the Russian rocket debris. Even the hour is correct to the minute.

The duration of observation of 15 seconds only indicates that the witness did not see the entire passage.

The "1 km max" altitude given by Franck Marie is meaningless; it is not possible to give a reliable altitude for an unknown phenomenon against the background of the night sky.

Evaluation:

Space junk reentry.

Sources references:

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

• [fme1] * "OVNI Contact - Une Enquête Choc - 400 OVNI sur la France le 5 novembre 1990!", book by Franck Marie, S.R.E.S. Vérités Anciennes publisher, France, page 290, 1993.
• [rai1] * "Observations file November 5, 1990", listing by Robert Alessandri, on his ufology association website I.N.H. Evidence, France, circa 2005, at http://perso.numericable.fr/~wolf424/univers.ovni/rentrees/statistiques_5_novembre/Catalogue5NovClasse.txt

File history:

Authoring:

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