Within Creuse UFOs
How Ordinary Lights Became Creuse UFOs
Two modern Creuse reports show how ordinary aircraft lights and balloons can become puzzling in dark rural skies.
On this page
- The Sermur aircraft photograph
- The N145 balloon sighting
- Why rural skies make misidentification easier
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Introduction
Two modern Creuse sightings show how easily ordinary aerial objects can become puzzling when seen briefly in dark, open country. In 2018, a photograph taken near Sermur looked, to the witness, like five aligned lights forming a flat rectangular structure; GEIPAN, the French official unit that investigates unidentified aerospace phenomena, classified it as a misidentification of an airliner. In 2024, a driver on the N145 saw a small grey point that seemed fixed in the sky before vanishing suddenly; GEIPAN linked it to a crewed gas balloon in the Gordon Bennett balloon race.[Geipan]cnes-geipan.frGeipanSERMUR (23) 06.08.2018 | GEIPAN…
These cases matter because they are not dramatic “classic UFO” stories. They are useful precisely because they are ordinary: one involved aircraft lights recorded during a long photographic exposure, and the other involved a distant balloon seen from a moving car at dusk. Both show the practical value of photos, timing, direction, witness context and known aviation activity when assessing Creuse reports. GEIPAN classified both as category A, meaning the phenomenon was identified after investigation.[Geipan+2Geipan]cnes-geipan.frOpen source on cnes-geipan.fr.
The Sermur aircraft photograph
The Sermur case began on 6 August 2018 at about 10 pm, when a witness was watching the stars from a hill overlooking the village. He noticed five close, aligned lights, took a photograph, and later saw what appeared to be a flat rectangular structure: white luminous rectangles bordered by red points. No other witness account was collected, but the photograph gave GEIPAN something concrete to test.[Geipan]cnes-geipan.frGeipanSERMUR (23) 06.08.2018 | GEIPAN…
The key detail was the camera exposure. GEIPAN’s investigation found that the photograph had a six-second exposure, and that the visible lights repeated five times in a regular pattern. Instead of treating the image as a single solid object, investigators read it as a time trace: an aircraft crossing the frame while its lights flashed and its position changed. The repeated red points matched the rhythm of aircraft anti-collision lights, while the white marks and the continuous greenish line were consistent with aircraft lighting.[Geipan]cnes-geipan.frGeipanSERMUR (23) 06.08.2018 | GEIPAN…
This explains why the image could look stranger than the event itself. A long exposure can combine movement and blinking into a shape the eye did not actually see. GEIPAN noted that the witness first described five aligned lights, but later interpreted the photo as a single rectangular structure. The investigation also found that the photographed trajectory was nearly parallel to the horizon, not a diagonal descent as the witness later reported. GEIPAN considered the late completion of the questionnaire, several months after the August sighting, a likely reason for this mismatch between memory, photograph and interpretation.[geipan.fr]geipan.frCompte rendu enquete550Compte rendu enquete550
The aircraft explanation was not based on one clue alone. The colours matched normal aviation lighting conventions: red, white and green lights are used on aircraft, with green on the starboard side and red on the port side; official aviation rules likewise require red and green forward position lights and a white rear position light. GEIPAN also estimated that the object moved about five degrees during the six-second exposure, giving an apparent angular speed of roughly one degree per second, which it considered compatible with an airliner.[eCFR]ecfr.gove CFR14 CFR Part 25 Subpart Fe CFR14 CFR Part 25 Subpart F
There was still one limitation. Because too much time had passed before GEIPAN processed the report, investigators could not formally identify the exact aircraft. That did not prevent a category A conclusion, because the photograph’s pattern, colour sequence, timing and apparent movement were judged strongly consistent with an airliner. GEIPAN classified the case as an aircraft misidentification, with low residual strangeness and medium consistency because there was only one witness but a useful photograph.[Geipan]cnes-geipan.frGeipanSERMUR (23) 06.08.2018 | GEIPAN…
The N145 balloon sighting
The N145 case took place on 15 September 2024 at about 8.42 pm. A driver travelling with her children saw a small grey point through the car window. It appeared to sit above a tree, seemed distant and stationary, and then disappeared suddenly after a few minutes. The witness took a photo and later submitted a technical questionnaire to GEIPAN.[Geipan]cnes-geipan.frGeipan[N145] DE SAINT-PRIEST-LA-PLAINE (23) VERS SOUTERRAINE (LA) (23) 15.09.2024 | GEIPAN…
The witness account is a good example of how a normal object can feel abnormal in real time. The driver was moving at road speed, looking through a side window, with children in the car and fading evening light outside. In her questionnaire she described the object as a small grey point, not luminous, with no trail, halo or sound, and said it seemed “totally static”. She also recorded her own uncertainty: bird, aircraft, meteorite and balloon-like possibilities were considered, but the apparent immobility and sudden disappearance troubled her.[Geipan]cnes-geipan.frQuestionnaire technique R213Questionnaire technique R213
GEIPAN concluded that the object was a crewed gas balloon from the LTU-1 team in the 67th Coupe Aéronautique Gordon Bennett. The case page states that 24 balloons had launched from Germany towards southern Portugal, crossing part of France, and that tracking data placed the LTU-1 balloon in the right direction at the right time. The photograph made it possible to locate the witness and determine the observation direction, while the race tracking site supplied the balloon’s position.[Geipan]cnes-geipan.frGeipan[N145] DE SAINT-PRIEST-LA-PLAINE (23) VERS SOUTERRAINE (LA) (23) 15.09.2024 | GEIPAN…
The wider race context matters because it makes the explanation much less speculative. The Fédération Aéronautique Internationale describes the Coupe Aéronautique Gordon Bennett as the world long-distance gas balloon championship, whose simple aim is to fly the furthest non-stop distance from the launch site. During the 2024 race, the 67th edition launched from Münster, Germany, and teams were travelling broadly southwards across Europe.[FAI]fai.orgOpen source on fai.org.
Why rural Creuse skies make misidentification easier
Creuse is well suited to this kind of misidentification because rural darkness can make ordinary lights more striking while removing many reference points. A plane that might pass unnoticed over a town can stand out sharply over fields, hills and dark horizons. A small balloon against a blue evening sky can seem suspended in place when the observer lacks nearby scale markers. The problem is not that witnesses are careless; it is that the sky gives the eye very little help.
The Sermur and N145 cases show three common mechanisms at work.
First, movement can be hidden or distorted. At Sermur, the camera’s six-second exposure turned repeated flashes and motion into a structured-looking pattern. On the N145, the observer’s own movement inside a car made it harder to judge whether the object was moving, stationary or simply very distant.[geipan.fr]geipan.frCompte rendu enquete550Compte rendu enquete550
What these explained cases add to Creuse UFO history
The value of these two Creuse cases is not that they reveal hidden aircraft or secret balloons. It is that they show how official investigation can turn a puzzling report into a testable sequence of questions: where was the witness, what direction were they looking, what did the camera record, what was in the sky at that time, and does the proposed explanation account for the oddest parts of the account?
They also show why “unidentified” should be treated as a temporary description, not a conclusion. GEIPAN’s classification system separates identified cases from probably identified cases, insufficient-data cases and cases that remain unidentified after investigation. The Sermur and N145 reports both moved out of mystery because enough information existed to compare the sighting with ordinary aerial activity.[Geipan]cnes-geipan.frOpen source on cnes-geipan.fr.
For Creuse, this makes the aircraft-and-balloon pattern important in a modest but practical way. These cases weaken any simple claim that every strange light in the department’s sky points to an unexplained phenomenon. At the same time, they strengthen the public record by showing exactly how a careful explanation is built: not by mocking witnesses, but by checking photographs, timing, directions, lighting patterns and known flights or balloons.
That is the most useful lesson for readers looking at Creuse UFO reports. A sighting can be sincere, memorable and genuinely puzzling to the person who saw it, yet still be explained later. In rural skies, especially at dusk or after dark, ordinary aviation can become strange before it becomes identifiable.
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Endnotes
1.
Source: geipan.fr
Title: Compte rendu enquete550
Link:https://geipan.fr/sites/default/files/Compte%20rendu%20enquete550.pdf
2.
Source: ecfr.gov
Title: e CFR14 CFR Part 25 Subpart F
Link:https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-14/chapter-I/subchapter-C/part-25/subpart-F/subject-group-ECFR0cb7970b9d1fd5f
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Source: cnes-geipan.fr
Link:https://www.cnes-geipan.fr/sites/default/files/Annexe.pdf
4.
Source: fai.org
Link:https://www.fai.org/gordonbennett
5.
Source: fai.org
Title: follow balloons 67th coupe aeronautique gordon bennett
Link:https://www.fai.org/news/follow-balloons-67th-coupe-aeronautique-gordon-bennett
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Source: cnes-geipan.fr
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Source: cnes-geipan.fr
Title: Questionnaire technique R213
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Additional References
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Title: Identifying UFOs / Anti-Myth Superpowers
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Source: ecologie.gouv.fr
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