The article below was published in the daily newspaper L'Est Eclair, France, on February 7, 2009.
It would be neither a part of the moon hidden by a cloud, nor a plane. On Thursday evening, a resident of Brienne noticed a very intense bright spot in the sky. being able to identify it, he photographed it before contacting the police.
"You're going to think I'm crazy!" On Thursday evening, Patrick was returning from Troyes, where he had come to attend an exhibition. Nothing out of the ordinary, until his gaze was drawn to an intense glow in a particularly clear sky over Brienne.
"It was around 8:45 p.m. I was arriving near the college when I saw this spot. It was located to the west of Brienne-le-Château and seemed static, even though I think it was very far from the town. In any case, this glow emitted a particularly intense light."
Without necessarily thinking of an encounter of the third kind, Patrick found the situation intriguing enough to decide to stop in order to better observe this spot. "I know the area: there is no antenna there. It wasn't the moon either: I looked, it was behind me. As for a plane, I've seen them before: they move, they flash and... they don't emit such a color."
Guided above all by legitimate curiosity, Patrick had the good idea to grab his camera and immortalize the scene with three digital photos. "I also alerted the police to report what I had seen," he explained to us yesterday morning, assuring that he had also sent an email to Météo-France. Taking care not to mention the overflight of an Unidentified Flying Object - a UFO -, the man is just trying to understand what he saw. Nothing more. Meteorological phenomenon? Electromagnetic? Presence of a satellite made visible by the absence of clouds? Or even entry into the atmosphere of a meteorite in the process of disintegration? The possibilities seem numerous... The only certainty: "The light gradually faded, to disappear completely around 9 p.m. It didn't last very long. I returned to the place a little later, there was nothing left." For the time being, it has not been possible for us to know whether other witnesses, able to corroborate this first statement, exist. Patrick, for his part, claims to have approached the Brienne gendarmerie brigade again yesterday afternoon in order to file his photos and record his testimony.
A detail as disturbing as it is amusing: "When I enlarged the first photo taken, in order to try to identify this glow, I saw red, white and blue appear. A bit like on our flag. I don't know if it comes from the camera or if it is an optical effect. On the other hand, there was nothing like that on the other two photos."
If, by chance, it should be an extraterrestrial presence, we can always be reassured by this commendable attention: by having the delicacy to display our republican colors during the flight over the Aube sky, the hypothetical little green men flashed, Thursday evening, by Patrick, could only have peaceful intentions.
Boris Callendreau
