An account in Paris, France

On January 21, 2012, a motorist and his passenger are driving on the A13 motorway toward Caen. Between 4:30 PM and 5:15 PM, they observe in the sky a silent object of cylindrical shape, silver and shiny, first motionless then moving very quickly on an East-West trajectory. The object disappears leaving a cloud plume. Only one testimony will be received at GEIPAN. Several hypotheses were considered for this observation case: an airplane or a hot-air balloon of cylindrical shape (grey or transparent) that would have temporarily reflected the sun. GEIPAN, to verify one or the other of the hypotheses, requested radar traces from the Air Force: only one trace, whose quality proved unusable, was recorded in the area and does not match the testimony. On the other hand, the witness indicates in the questionnaire that the object "came from the East going toward the West," then in later exchanges by email on 22.03.2012, he indicates that the object came from the Northwest. The time of the phenomenon is only known to within about half an hour, which is a lot for correlating with airplane passages; the location of the observation during a trip on the motorway is also equally imprecise. The observed airplanes do not appear on the radars, and the only radar trace produced proves unusable; no solid element remains to confirm or refute any hypothesis. GEIPAN classifies this case "C": no decision due to lack of reliable information.