Vienne, France · 2013-07-17 · from the GEIPAN archive
On July 17, 2013 at around 11:50 PM, a witness observed from his home a white, luminous, and stationary phenomenon. The observation lasted one minute before the phenomenon went out, then turned back on 30 seconds later before disappearing for good. No other testimony was collected. GEIPAN considered several hypotheses for this case: - Astronomical hypothesis: a planet, temporarily hidden by clouds, could have given this impression, but the sky chart does not reveal any bright celestial body to the southeast. - Hypothesis of a reflection of sunlight on a satellite: the effect would have been roughly the same, but shorter, and not fixed for one minute. A check with the Calsky website shows several satellites passing through the witness's field of view at the stated time, as well as two Iridium satellite flares at 11:45 PM and 11:54 PM, but in a direction opposite to the one indicated by the witness. - Aeronautical hypothesis: an airplane seen head-on, with its landing light on, can very well give this impression of a fixed point: it seems to disappear if it changes course, when the witness is no longer in line with the beam of the spotlight. This hypothesis could not be confirmed in time with air traffic. This observation case, of low strangeness, of medium consistency due to the uniqueness of the testimony and the absence of a photo, is classified "C" for lack of cross-checked information.
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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.
Anomaly