29 May 2013, about 23:45 local; approximately one minute
Outcome: Open (Unresolved). GEIPAN retained D1 after an interview and roadside reconstruction. A meteor and drifting lanterns did not satisfactorily fit the reported slow, noisy appearance; one witness and no event recording limit the result.
The date and the roadside account
On 29May 2013, a driver nearing Ménil-Hubert-sur-Orne described a dark pebble-like appearance above the village cemetery, with two red lights towards each end. He stopped intending to film it, heard a high-pitched hum and watched it move slowly away behind the landscape. No film was obtained.
The official case page corrects the questionnaire’s 30May date to 29May. The full interview describes four lights, rather than requiring the reader to infer a number from shortened accounts of lights at the front and rear. This article follows the documented full narrative.
A return to the site
The witness sent the questionnaire the next day. GEIPAN commissioned further work, and on 11June an investigator interviewed him, reconstructed the roadside view and accompanied the reporting process at the gendarmerie. The technical report is dated 12July 2013.
The reconstruction established sightlines and the position of the road and cemetery. It did not provide a surveyed position for an airborne object. The witness’s comparisons of width and height were estimates, and the source records more than one way he described its scale. They should not be combined into an exact engineering drawing.
Noise, movement and ordinary possibilities
Investigators considered an atmospheric entry and lanterns. The slow reported motion and sound did not fit an ordinary brief meteor particularly well; the meteor database search provided no matching event. The recorded wind direction also caused difficulty for a simple drifting-lantern explanation.
The sound itself was not recorded or independently identified. Hearing a hum at the same time as seeing a light does not establish that the light produced it. The report preserves the witness’s association, while a stronger physical reconstruction would require evidence linking the sound and visual source.
An attempted recording is still an absence of footage
The witness explained that stopping, ending a phone conversation and preparing the camera took time. By then the appearance was moving out of sight. That account helps explain why no recording was made, but it cannot be substituted for one. The friend on the phone did not thereby become an independent visual observer.
Similarly, the return to a higher point on the road supplied no further sighting. The lost view can be described without inventing a disappearance mechanism. A slow-moving source can pass behind a nearby obstruction while remaining visible from some other position; the failed attempt to regain it does not by itself measure speed.
An investigated but limited unresolved case
GEIPAN classified the observation D1, while explicitly noting the single witness, lack of photographs and relatively brief description. UKPX records Open (Unresolved) because that is the documented outcome after investigation, not because every missing measurement can be filled with an extraordinary interpretation.
An original recording, a second independent account or a matching ordinary operation would each materially improve the enquiry. Without one, the careful conclusion is narrower: a reported roadside experience received field investigation and was not satisfactorily identified. The map points broadly to the village; the cemetery description is historical context, not a verified public UFO-viewing location.
Location and map reference
Ménil-Hubert-sur-Orne, Orne, France. Broad commune reference from the French government geographic API; not the witness home, precise observation position or object location. This listing does not advertise access to private property.
Sources and review
CNES–GEIPAN official case record and the original investigation report. Official case summary and ten-page report read, particularly pp 1–2, 5–10. Date correction and four-light full account preserved; no invented recording or sound identification. Sources and current classification checked 13 November 2026. The incident date above is distinct from the later investigation and archive-update dates.