An account in Maine-et-Loire, France

On June 12, 2014 at 10:15 PM, a witness observes and photographs two orange luminous phenomena in the sky. The photos very clearly suggest airplane contrails, made very bright by the setting sun. The sun is about 3 degrees below the horizon; it set at 9:57 PM, that is, less than 20 minutes before the observation. At 10,000 meters altitude, the minimum cruising altitude for medium- and long-haul flights, the sun is still visible. The plane moves away from the observer toward the northwest, in the direction of the setting sun: the contrail is in fact parallel to the Earth, but seen from below, with a low angle of incidence, it appears vertical. See an explanation of strange airplane contrails. These two parallel contrails, which change direction together, suggest rather two military aircraft rather than two airliners. GEIPAN could not recover the necessary information in time to resolve this uncertainty. GEIPAN classifies this case "B": observation of airplane condensation trails.