The Châteauponsac Diamond

On 21 November 1979 a woman in the Haute-Vienne saw an object about 100 metres from her. It carried several lights. Three were red and one was orange, and together they drew a diamond standing upright in the air. The orange light took the place of each red one in turn, rotating clockwise. The object did not move and made no sound. She noticed no smell. Then it left towards the north and trailed a whitish smoke behind it. Sheep penned 600 metres away were, in GEIPAN's words, in "un grand affolement" (a great panic).

What is on the record

GEIPAN is the unit of the French space agency CNES that investigates unidentified aerospace phenomena. Its file on this case is thin. There is a short description and there are two statement sheets. No report, photograph or document is attached. The case carries Châteauponsac in its title, but both statements are filed under Balledent, the next commune, so the sighting may have been there. The file gives no time of day.

A second statement was collected. That witness described red lights forming a diamond. GEIPAN's summary of it mentions nothing more than that. GEIPAN found no marks on the ground and gathered no further information. It names no ordinary explanation that it tested and set aside. It simply calls the phenomenon unexplained and keeps the case in class D, which means it investigated and could not explain it.

The frightened sheep are the detail that makes this file stand out. The record does not say who saw them or how long the panic lasted.

Why it sits where it does

The page grades L0, a single account. GEIPAN withholds witness identities, so the record carries no identified witness, even though two people gave statements. The tier measures sourcing, not the quality of the inquiry. What the record holds is an official note of a lit, silent diamond and a flock in panic. What hung in the air near Châteauponsac is not resolved here.