An account in Puy-de-Dôme, France

On July 3, 2014 at around 5:30 a.m., several witnesses observed a very bright light seeming to float above a nearby military base. The shape resembled a crescent. One witness filmed the phenomenon. The long observation of a bright point moving slowly in the sky suggests a celestial body. The video shows a bright point low on the horizon. A map check of the viewing direction toward the Pierre-sur-Haute military base indicates an azimuth of about 72° (E NE). An astronomical check precisely identifies the planet Venus, which was very bright that morning. The shape and variable colors noted by the witnesses are common for this type of observation of celestial bodies low on the horizon; they are the result of scintillation, caused by atmospheric turbulence. The witness interpreted this light as strange because of its position above the military base: this is of course entirely coincidental, it is only a random alignment, but it caught the witness's attention. It is often this kind of coincidence that makes a phenomenon seem strange that would have been perceived as ordinary in another context. GEIPAN classifies this case as "A" as perfectly identified: the planet Venus at sunrise.