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ALSACAT:

ALSACAT is my comprehensive catalog of UFO sighting reports in Alsace, the region is the North-East of France, whether they are "explained" or "unexplained".

The ALSACAT catalog is made of case files with a case number, summary, quantitative information (date, location, number of witnesses...), classifications, all sources mentioning the case with their references, a discussion of the case in order to evaluate its causes, and a history of the changes made to the file. A general index and thematic sub-catalogs give access to these Alsatian case files.

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Case of Sierentz, on November 6, 1994:

Case number:

ALSACAT-1994-11-06-SIERENTZ-1

Summary:

A case, whose primary source is unknown to me, of disco spotlights mistaken for UFOs, would have occurred in the Sierentz sector, seen from the A35 motorway, on 6 November 1994.

There would have been five "additional witnesses" and one of the witnesses, a woman, was "hospitalized after a nervous breakdown."

The phenomenon is said to have dimmed in the headlights of a passing plane, to reappear soon.

Data:

Temporal data:

Date: November 6, 1994
Time: ?
Duration: ?
First known report date: 2002?
Reporting delay: Hours, years.

Geographical data:

Department: Haut-Rhin
City: Sierentz
Place: From the A35 highway, UFO in the sky.
Latitude: 47.660
Longitude: 7.481
Uncertainty radius: 3 km

Witnesses data:

Number of alleged witnesses: 6
Number of known witnesses: ?
Number of named witnesses: ?
Witness(es) ages: ?
Witness(es) types: ?

Ufology data:

Reporting channel: Emmanuel Dehlinger.
Type of location: From the A35 highway, UFO in the sky.
Visibility conditions: Night
UFO observed: Yes
UFO arrival observed: ?
UFO departure observed: ?
Entities: No
Photographs: No.
Sketch(s) by witness(es): No.
Sketch(es) approved by witness(es): No.
Witness(es) feelings: 1 nervous breakdown.
Witnesses interpretation: ?

Classifications:

Hynek: NL
ALSACAT: Probable Skytracers.

Sources:

[Ref. edr1:] EMMANUEL DEHLINGER:

Area of Sierentz, A35 highway (Haut-Rhin), November 6, 1994

Site surrounded by power lines near the power plant of Kembs, busy air corridor and near nightclub (triple pre-debunking?). 5 additional witnesses. One witness (a woman) is hospitalized after a nervous breakdown. The phenomenon fades in the headlights of a passing airplane then reappears immediately afterwards, which seems to confirm that it is indeed a luminous phenomenon. The danger of flying over such a site in the fog between the power lines and air traffic rather suggest a shot from local relief, drowned in mist. There is at 5 km to the east of the A35 motorway, in Germany, a slope of ~ 100 m from where the shooting could have started (IGN 3721). We take advantage of this case to clarify that when we mention in the comments of a case with "N Further testimonies", this means that the same appearance was observed by several witnesses (or groups of witnesses) independently. When there is only one witness, it is still most often multiple observers even if we do not tell it in the comment.

Discussion:

Map.

I need to provide some explanations about the [edr1] source.

The author, Emmanuel Dehlinger, claims that UFOs since 1942, and the "crop circles" are actually "fakes" created by "the military" - he does not specify more - using laser beams, blimps etc.

Needless to say, the thesis is, in my opinion - and others' opinion - totally absurd. This case illustrates it, actually.

All ufologist with minimum good sense and experience very well know that sometimes people mistake discotheque projectors for UFOs.

There is simply no sense in wanting to believe that it would be "the military" that would use projectors to do this; discotheques suffice.

In this case, the author himself points out that there is a nightclub in the vicinity. And reports no military. But rather than conclude that the military had nothing to do with this ordinary mistake case, he deduced that the military took advantage of the presence of nightclubs to play their trick! A fine example of magical thinking, isn't it?

Imagine that I would claim, "My washing achine is a spy device designed by aliens. The proof? They disguised it as washing machine." I think you would wonder if I suddenly wires are touching in my brain...

Let's be serious: there were multiple cases of discos projectors mistaken for UFOs in that area, documented in this catalog.

The "culprit" is the discotheque there, well-known by most people of the area: it is in fact largest nightclub of the area, in Bartenheim, "Discopolis" - actually "Planet Discopolis", formerly "Macumba" then "Loisirs Palace", 5 Rue Robert Schumann, 68870 Bartenheim. It uses Skytracers, I have already seen them at work.

For the record, I had seen in the entrance of the nightclub around 1990, in a shop window, a small dummy representing "the alien Roswell."

Let us add that the hydropower plant on the Rhine at Kembs is six kilometers away, it has nothing to do with this story, and there are no more high voltage power lines here than in other places; in any case, to claim that the site is "surrounded" of high-voltage power lines is a total exaggeration. Finally, the passage of the plane is quite ordinary: the runway of the international airport is just along the A35 highway...

About "Skytracers":

Scan.

One sometimes call them "discotheque lasers", it is often so in the regional Pres, as a cause of UFO sightings. They are actually not lasers but projectors of ordinary light.

The purpose of these Skytracers is to get attention from far away, up to miles away. Lasers are mostly effective on location, inside a nightclub or on a concert place.

Scan.

Their light can be white, but it can also have a green, blue, red, yellow hue... Motors are used to move the projections on 1, 2 or 3 axis. By software, they can be programmed to perform sequences of more or less repetitive figures; as witnesses often report.

Scan.

When there is vapor in the air from the ground up, the Skytracer produces a beam of light, fixed or mobile.

It can produce the impression of a "luminous cigar."

Scan.

But id a low cloud layer tops a mass of dry air on the ground, there is no visible beam, one sees the projection of the beam on the bottom of the clouds. It is mostly in such conditions that people sometimes are unable to recognize projectors.

With several networked and programmed Skytracers, it is possible de produce shows of the "flying saucer" or "flying saucers formation" kind.

Evaluation:

Probable Skytracers.

Sources references:

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

File history:

Authoring:

Main author: Patrick Gross
Contributors: None
Reviewers: None
Editor: Patrick Gross

Changes history:

Version: Create/changed by: Date: Description:
0.1 Patrick Gross July 27, 2015 Creation, [edr1].
1.0 Patrick Gross July 27, 2015 First published.

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This page was last updated on July 27, 2015.