The Diamond over the Yacht

In the night of 3 to 4 July 1997, at four in the morning, a man was at the helm of his sailing boat. He saw an intense glow come down fast for two or three seconds. It held still for a few moments, then shot off horizontally and was gone in about two or three seconds more. He called his two crewmates, who had been asleep. While he was telling them what he had seen, all three watched a second phenomenon. It was a "losange jaune ocre" (a yellow-ochre diamond) with lights at its corners. It moved very fast at the height of the clouds and vanished after ten to fifteen seconds.

What is on the record

GEIPAN files the case under Les Sables-d'Olonne in the Vendée. Its published file is one paragraph of description and three witness forms. It does not say where the boat was. The forms record three men, a clear night and no sound. One gives the object's size as "30 fois un avion" (thirty times an aircraft), an estimate that hangs on a distance nobody could measure at night.

There is no investigation report, no official statement and no list of explanations tested. The summary closes on a single line: "Les phénomènes observés n'ont pas été expliqués" (the phenomena observed have not been explained). The case sits in class D, meaning GEIPAN investigated and could not explain it. Its label is strange to very strange, with medium to strong consistency.

The two sightings are not the same kind of evidence. The first rests on one man at the helm. The second was seen by all three, though they stood together on one deck and cannot count as independent observers.

Why it sits where it does

L0 · SINGLE ACCOUNT. GEIPAN withholds its witnesses' identities, and neither the crew nor the boat is named. The released record therefore carries no identified witness. The tier measures sourcing, not the quality of the investigation. What passed over the yacht is not resolved here.