An account in Lot-et-Garonne, France

At 7:35 a.m. on January 30, 2012, a witness observes what he first takes to be a star. The object is spherical, the size of a 5-centime coin, white in color, bluish at the center. Suddenly, the object moves and ends up at the witness's zenith, then zigzags from right to left, goes off very fast, zigzags again, and heads south until it disappears. It is noted that at exactly the same moment, in directions very close to those indicated by the witness, the International Space Station (ISS) was crossing the sky from northwest to southeast, and was extremely bright (magnitude -4, like Venus). The description of the object matches the ISS well, but the account of its movement obviously does not, since the ISS moves in a straight line. Since the witness could not have missed seeing the ISS, we conclude that the witness was subject to the classic illusions of perception: autokinesis and autostasis (the perception of a point of light in the sky), illusions that are frequent when observing against a uniform background; because the cloud cover hid the fainter stars: the ISS was the only visible point of light against the sky background. Due to the partially cloud-covered sky, a slight doubt remains about the visibility of the ISS. GEIPAN classifies this case "B": probable observation of the International Space Station. The witness makes a second observation on January 22, but does not provide details. On that day, an ISS pass is noted from 7:06 a.m. to 7:13 a.m. above the northern horizon. The witness makes a third observation on Friday, February 24, at 9:20 p.m., of "two spheres resembling my last testimony, but bright red in color, which followed each other perfectly." At that exact moment, the passage of two American NOSS spy satellites is noted near the northern horizon: however, these satellites are most often not bright enough to be seen with the naked eye.