The Domed Oval over Thuir

At about half past two on the afternoon of 25 March 1976 a motorist and his passengers near Thuir saw a luminous craft moving east to west across the sky. They described it as large and oval, topped by a dome. It stayed in view for about a minute and then disappeared abruptly. It was daylight, and the outline stood out sharply against the blue sky.

What is on the record

GEIPAN is the unit of the French space agency CNES that investigates unidentified aerospace phenomena. Its file holds the gendarmerie report and notes from a re-examination dated 12 December 2011. The notes count three witnesses from one family in the same car. Two adults gave statements to the gendarmes and a minor did not. All three drew the object, and the notes find the sketches consistent while warning that their independence is hard to verify. One witness described "une sorte d'inhibition" (a kind of inhibition) about the phenomenon that lasted 24 hours. The notes call this surprising. No other report reached the gendarmerie.

GEIPAN's reasoning is short. The statements are precise but thin on detail. They do not fix where the car was, and they are not detailed enough to test or rule out an aeroplane, a light aircraft, a balloon or a helicopter. The notes admit the line between class C and D1 is hard to draw here. They settle on D1: unexplained, with a strangeness they rate medium, or marked if the object was saucer-shaped. The notes grade the consistency as weak in one line and moderate in the next, and a new inquiry so long after the event was judged impossible. Class D means GEIPAN investigated and could not explain it.

Why it sits where it does

The page grades L0, a single account. GEIPAN withholds witness identities, so the record carries no identified witness. Three people in one car do not change that, and the notes themselves doubt how independent they were. The tier measures sourcing, not the quality of GEIPAN's work. What crossed the sky over Thuir is not resolved here.