We can also examine the testimony of the legendary French godfather of ufology himself, Dr. Jacques Vallée.
Young Jacques was working as an astronomer at the Paris Observatory as part of its nascent satellite tracking program.
Some try to explain away Jacques' orbital mystery sighting by invoking the Corona program.
making it extremely incompatible with the exceptional brightness that Jacques reports.
Jacques also mentioned that the object did not reappear in successive weeks.
What happened next would shock young Jacques to his very core.
Jacques would later recount realizing that scientists were human beings like the rest of us.
In many ways, this was the inciting incident which sent Jacques on his lifelong hero's journey to the furthest edges of the unexplained.