Case · C-116
Air France 3532, 1994: a dark red disc over Coulommiers and a radar track
Airspace over Coulommiers, Seine-et-Marne, Île-de-France · France · Jan 28, 1994
In flight Pilots Radar
Unexplained
- What happened
- On January 28, 1994, at 13:14 according to GEIPAN, the crew of an Air France Airbus A320 flying from Nice to London noticed, over the Coulommiers area, a phenomenon that the chief steward, the first to report it, took for a weather balloon; the captain and the copilot then described a brown or dark red disc that changed shape before disappearing suddenly. Reims control had no traffic in the sector. At the same moment the Cinq-Mars-la-Pile radar recorded for 50 seconds an unidentified track that crossed the flight's route and disappeared together with the object. The witnesses made a report to the gendarmerie and to SEPRA only in 1997; GEIPAN classifies the case D1, but notes that the radar track does not match the described object well and that the chief steward's testimony is missing.
- Proposed explanation
- In 2012 GEIPAN, with Météo-France, ruled out a sounding balloon (which had passed an hour earlier) and still considers possible, but unprovable, an unknown atmospheric optical phenomenon or a flexible object, such as a balloon envelope, carried by the wind.
- Official investigation
- GEIPAN (CNES); SEPRA; National Gendarmerie; French air defense (radar recording)
- Words of the document
cas inexpliqué moyennement consistant avec un caractère d'étrangeté marqué
Official documents
- « AF3532 » [AERO AFR] COULOMMIERS (77) 28.01.1994 – scheda del caso con verbali e documenti · GEIPAN (CNES) · Jun 16, 2026
Sources
- Futura Sciences, “5 histoires extraordinaires et non résolues d'ovnis: l'étrange observation de l'équipage du vol Nice-Londres” (press)
- Patrick Gross, study of the testimonies on flight AF 3532 (estimated dimensions and sources) (analysis)
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