The Port Vila Fishermen's Light

Three fishermen were out in a boat off Port Vila between 19:30 and 20:00 on 7 June 1978. A light caught their attention and held it for several minutes. It was white and moved slowly along the coast. Then it turned and came towards them. When it drew level, they said, they could see a craft with coloured flames coming out of its rear, and it made no sound at all. It changed direction abruptly, headed back towards the coast and was suddenly gone. GEIPAN's summary says it left them "très impressionnés", much affected by it.

What is on the record

Port Vila was then the capital of the New Hebrides, run jointly by Britain and France. It became Vanuatu in 1980. The case is in the public archive of GEIPAN, the unit of the French space agency CNES that investigates reports of unidentified aerospace phenomena. The page lists four testimonies. Three are filed under Port Vila and one under Emua. One Port Vila form, made on the water by a man of about 20, logs a clear night and a silent, car-sized object with a trail 30 to 40 metres away.

Other people saw something in the sky that evening. From the description they gave the gendarmerie, GEIPAN judges theirs was probably a shooting star. It did not reach that answer for the fishermen. The investigation ruled out an aircraft or a boat, a sounding balloon and signal lights. "Ce cas malgré une enquête poussée reste non identifié": despite a thorough investigation the case remains unidentified.

Class D is GEIPAN's category for a case it investigated and could not explain. It rates this one strange to very strange, with medium to strong consistency.

Why it sits where it does

The page grades L0 · SINGLE ACCOUNT. Three men were in the boat, but GEIPAN withholds its witnesses' identities and names no crew or vessel, so the record carries no identified witness. A tier measures sourcing, not the quality of the investigation. What passed the fishermen's boat is not resolved here.