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if switched on. It rose, made two more loops and flew away to the west, where it disappeared at 9:50 P.M. The next day Mr. Figuet compared notes with a communications engineer who had observed the same object from the Navy fort. Together, they called the weather observatory at Fort-de-France. The man who answered the call had also observed the object. He stated that it was neither an aircraft, nor a rocket.
In 1988 the author was able to interview Michel Figuet in Brussels. He confirmed the maneuvers and the appearance of the object and stated that he had met again with some of the crew members whose recollections of the facts were equally precise. A landscape illuminated by the full moon receives 0.318 lux, or 1.8 X 10-3 W/m2. Since there is agreement among the observers that the object had approximately the same brightness as the full moon and was situated about 10 kilometers away, we can compute its total luminosity as:
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where I is the intensity in W/m2 and A is the area over which light is spread.6
Here,
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where r=10,000 m, which gives P=2.3 X 106 W (2.3 megawatts).
Case no. 3: December 30, 1966. Haynesville (Louisiana) -- Classification: CE-2
The third case is drawn from the official U.S. files. It took place at 8:15 P.M. on December 30, 1966, in the vicinity of Haynesville, Louisiana. The witnesses are a professor of physics, Dr. G., and his family. Inquiries with the weather bureau disclose that the weather was overcast, with fog and a light drizzle, ceiling about three hundred feet, all parameters that are in agreement with the witnesses' statements. There was no thunderstorm.
In early 1967 the author came across this sighting while reviewing the files of the U.S. Air Force as an associate of Dr. J. Allen Hynek at Northwestern University. The report by Dr. G. and his family had not been followed up by Air Force personnel, so we decided to pursue it on our own. Dr. G. told Dr. Hynek and myself that he was driving north that night on U.S. Highway 79 between Haynesville and the Arkansas border when his wife called his attention to a red-orange glow appearing through and above the trees ahead to their left. They continued to observe it as they drove down the highway. It appeared as a luminous hemisphere, pulsating regularly, ranging from dull red to bright orange, with a period of about two seconds. There was no smoke or flame that would have been characteristic of a fire.
6The author wishes to thank David A. Newton for bringing to his attention some important corrections and improvements to his initial calculations in this case and those that follow. (Private communication, August 8, 1993).
