AnomalyA witness is intrigued by an observation made on August 22, 2012 at 10:19 PM. He observed the passage of a luminous point which, after a beginning of a straight trajectory, makes jerky movements from right to left before disappearing. The description made by the witness corresponds (appearance, and direction of movement) to within one minute, to the observation of the passage of the International Space Station. The temporary extinction corresponds to variations in the reflections of the sun on the station during its rotation. The jerky movements from right to left are a perception illusion called "autokinetic illusion" (see pages 26 and 30 in /typo3conf/ext/dam_frontend/pushfile.php?docID=9932; this illusion occurs when the luminous point being followed is no longer surrounded by fixed reference points, for example when it crosses an area of the sky without very bright stars. This case is classified "A": observation of the International Space Station ISS, with autokinetic illusion.
Alpes-de-Haute-Provence, France · 2012-08-22 · from the GEIPAN archive
An account in Alpes-de-Haute-Provence, 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.