An account in Vosges, France

On September 13, 2007 between 5:08 and 5:13 a.m., a witness observed outside his home the north-to-south passage of two luminous points (white in color with reddish reflections) separated from each other by about two degrees. No noise was heard during the observation. The observation described largely matches a satellite passage: straight trajectory, progressive disappearance (extinguishing). At that time and in that season, many satellites pass on this trajectory. The 2 objects could be the satellite and its launch vehicle: it is noted that on 11/09/2007 the COSMOS 2429 launcher launched the SL-8 R/B satellite into a near-polar orbit (the time of passage into visibility could not be verified). The strong brightness is however surprising: these objects should not be that bright (magnitude 4). The perception of immobility for 5 seconds at the start of the observation is not compatible with this hypothesis, but may be a perception error. Despite these uncertainties, this case is classified "B": probable observation of satellites, due to the low strangeness of the phenomenon.

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This is an official case file of GEIPAN, the French space agency's unidentified aerospace phenomena office, machine translated from French. The original text and the full investigation file are at geipan.fr. We reproduce it with thanks and remove anything on request.