8 August 2012, around 23:00 local; approximately five seconds
Outcome: Open (Unresolved). GEIPAN retained D1 following a detailed account and field reconstruction. The reported appearance and movement did not fit an accepted explanation, but range, size and speed were not independently measured.
Five seconds above a terrace
On 8August 2012, a person watching the night sky from a family terrace at Volx described a dim brown-green appearance like a weaving shuttle, with a darker reddish area near its centre. It moved in a straight line and was lost behind vegetation. No sound was attributed to it.
The unusual feature was principally its appearance, not a recorded manoeuvre. The report describes the long axis as transverse to the direction of movement. UKPX does not turn that analogy into a precise spacecraft design or assign a cigar tag where the source describes a different and indistinct form.
A written report, a police statement and fieldwork
GEIPAN received a questionnaire inAugust 2012; a gendarmerie statement followed. After initial desk analysis, an investigator visited the witness and reconstructed the view on 10January 2015. The final report is datedDecember 2015.
That later visit checked the observable setting and refined direction, duration and angular comparisons. It did not reproduce the original phenomenon. The interval between report and fieldwork also matters when treating refined estimates as more exact than the original fleeting view could support.
Conditional geometry and the absence of a match
The investigation compared the described motion with wind-borne objects, animals, aircraft and projected light. The apparent extent and speed produced difficulties for those possibilities under the ranges considered. A single observer, however, cannot directly measure distance to an unfamiliar night-time source.
The report also speculates about a rare natural atmospheric phenomenon. That is an untested suggestion, not the discovery of a new physical mechanism. It supplies neither a recovered sample nor an independently measured atmospheric event. The existence of a hypothesis should not be confused with evidence identifying this particular appearance.
The unusual natural suggestion remains speculation
The report discusses an analogy with rare atmospheric wave-like events. UKPX retains it as the investigator’s speculative line of thought, not a newly demonstrated explanation. The supporting file does not provide atmospheric measurements showing such a mechanism occurred at Volx that night.
This matters because unexplained should not become a shortcut to any preferred cause. The dark centre, unusual outline and sense of background distortion belong to the report, while the physical nature of the appearance remains undetermined. The later reconstruction improves documentation of the view without supplying the missing event record.
What the classification preserves
GEIPAN retained D1, describing a precise but solitary account without photographs. UKPX records Open (Unresolved), retaining both the investigation and that evidential ceiling. The reported obscuration or distortion of the background remains a witness description, not a measured optical effect.
Useful new evidence would include an independent observation, original imagery or a specifically documented ordinary source in the relevant direction and time. Until then, the file is an investigated unresolved account. It is valuable as a record of what was observed and how it was checked, without proving the physical size, altitude or origin of the appearance.
Location and map reference
Volx, Alpes-de-Haute-Provence, 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 current page;13-page report pp 1–3 and 11–13 reviewed, including 2015 fieldwork, hypotheses and explicit speculative natural-phenomenon passage. No claim new atmospheric mechanism established. Sources and current classification checked 13 November 2026. The incident date above is distinct from the later investigation and archive-update dates.