AnomalyGEIPAN received numerous testimonies about observations made on Sunday, October 18, 2009, around 9:15 PM (local time) concerning the passage from south to northwest of two bright points in the sky. The observations were made across the entire national territory. They very often describe one to two bright luminous points followed by a white halo (like a comet trail). No noise was heard. These observations correspond to the fuel dumping phase of the Centaur upper stage of an American military weather satellite, DMSP F18, launched by an Atlas rocket from the Vandenberg launch site in California (USA). This case is the subject of a news item on the GEIPAN website. New testimonies are regularly added to this case.
France, France · 2009-10-18 · from the GEIPAN archive
An account in France, France
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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.