Model-dependent size
If the assumed visual distance was approximately correct, the apparent angular size would imply an extremely large object.
COULOMMIERS, FRANCE · 28 JANUARY 1994 · ≈13:14
One sighting — and a radar track that may not be the same thing.
An Air France crew reported a huge, dark reddish-brown phenomenon in daylight. French military radar also recorded an unidentified track. For years, those two facts were fused into one perfect radar-visual case. The official investigation was more cautious.
OPEN THE OFFICIAL GEIPAN CASE ↗FLIGHTAF3532 · Nice–London
AIRCRAFTAirbus A320
OFFICIAL STATUSGEIPAN D1 / unexplained
THE CREW SIGHTING
Daylight. Professional witnesses. No easy identification.
The chief steward was reportedly the first to notice something off the left side of the Airbus and initially suggested a weather balloon. Captain Jean-Charles Duboc and copilot Valérie Chaufour then observed the phenomenon in daylight.
The two pilots broadly agreed on a dark reddish-brown object or phenomenon with an unusual changing appearance and a sudden disappearance. Their descriptions were not identical: the captain emphasized a large disc-like form, while the copilot described changing disc, ellipse, lens and arrow-like appearances.
Reims air-traffic control reported no ordinary traffic in the relevant visual sector.
Three crew reportedly saw the phenomenon. The detailed formal statements currently recovered are from the captain and copilot; the steward who first noticed it was not later recovered for formal testimony.
THE RADAR TRACK
Real. Unidentified. And surprisingly ordinary in speed.
The SEPRA investigation recovered a military radar track associated with Cinq-Mars-la-Pile. It lasted roughly fifty seconds, followed a northeast-to-southwest ground track and crossed AF3532's projected route.
DURATION≈ 50 sec
GROUND SPEED≈ 180 km/h
ALTITUDENot detected
The return matched no filed flight plan, but it was weak/intermittent and showed no extraordinary acceleration. SEPRA explicitly left open the possibility of a low-flying private aircraft without a flight plan.
IMPORTANT
This is not “military radar confirmed the UFO.”
The track existed. The visual sighting existed. The official investigators did not establish that they represented the same object.
The problem:
Radar crossed near the projected flight path. The crew reconstructed the visual phenomenon far to the west. This diagram is explanatory, not a measured map.
THE GEOMETRY PROBLEM
Close on the map. Far apart in the reconstruction.
The radar track's closest projected crossing with AF3532's ground route was about one nautical mile — roughly two kilometres.
That sounds dramatic until the missing third dimension is restored. The radar target produced no altitude return, so the one-nautical-mile value is not a measured physical separation from the Airbus.
Meanwhile, SEPRA's visual reconstruction placed the crew's phenomenon far to the left/west, around 25 nautical miles — roughly 50 km — from the aircraft.
SEPRA itself said the relationship between the two events appeared unlikely at first sight.
THE FAMOUS SIZE ESTIMATE
250–300 metres was reconstructed, not measured.
The crew's angular-size impression and an assumed visual range were later converted into very large physical dimensions, commonly around 250–300 metres.
Radar measured a 300 m craft
The radar contact cannot safely provide the visual object's range because SEPRA did not establish that the two evidence streams were the same phenomenon.
THE DISAPPEARANCE
The timing is tantalizing.
The crew lost sight of the visual phenomenon at approximately the same time the unidentified radar contact disappeared from the military display.
That temporal coincidence is one of the strongest reasons the two events remain tempting to connect.
But simultaneity does not repair incompatible position data. Without matching altitude, bearing, position and synchronized raw track information, the common disappearance stays suggestive rather than decisive.
ONE EVENT OR TWO?
The official record leaves both possibilities alive.
The visual phenomenon
Three crew reportedly observed a large, changing reddish-brown phenomenon west of the flight. Two professional pilots later supplied detailed formal testimony.
The radar contact
A slow unidentified target crossed the projected route, had no altitude return and may have been a separate low-flying aircraft or other airborne target.
If the radar track was mundane and separate, the pilots' visual phenomenon still lacks a conventional-aircraft radar match. If the two were somehow related, the official geometry has not yet shown how.
THE BALLOON CHECK
One specific radiosonde does not fit.
A Météo-France reconstruction found that a radiosonde balloon had crossed the route earlier that day, but roughly an hour before the observation. By the sighting time it should have burst, with remnants descending far to the southeast.
That weakens that specific balloon explanation. It does not eliminate every possible balloon-like, flexible or windborne object.
THE EVIDENCE HAS TWO DATES
1994 records. 1997 detailed testimony.
The flight event, captain's ATC contact, military/aviation procedures and radar record were contemporaneous.
The detailed formal captain/copilot statements used by SEPRA were recorded roughly three years later after renewed attention to the case.
That delay does not erase the event, but it does matter when judging precision in later shape, angle, distance and size reconstruction.
THE REAL MYSTERY
The “perfect radar-visual case” is not what survives.
The popular version says Air France pilots saw a 300-metre UFO and French military radar confirmed it.
The official record is more complicated — and arguably more interesting.
A professional airline crew reported a striking daylight phenomenon that remains unexplained. A genuine unidentified radar track existed at almost the same time. But the radar target was slow, had no measured altitude and occupied geometry that SEPRA found difficult to reconcile with the visual report.
The unanswered question is whether AF3532 encountered one phenomenon imperfectly captured by two evidence streams — or whether two different unresolved events overlapped in time.
SOURCE ROOM
Start with the French official file.
GEIPAN — AF3532, Coulommiers, 28.01.1994OFFICIAL CASE PAGE · D1 · DOCUMENTS / TESTIMONY / RADAR / METEO MATERIAL
SEPRA investigation reportRADAR / VISUAL CORRELATION · GEOMETRY · CONVENTIONAL HYPOTHESES
CODA / Cinq-Mars-la-Pile radar chronology≈50-SECOND UNIDENTIFIED TRACK · RAW DATA REMAINS HIGH-VALUE TARGET
Captain and copilot formal statementsDETAILED TESTIMONY RECORDED IN 1997
Météo-France radiosonde reconstructionSPECIFIC BALLOON TIMING / TRAJECTORY CHECK
Chief steward testimonyFIRST OBSERVER · FORMAL LATER STATEMENT NOT RECOVERED