Maine-et-Loire, France · 2014-09-12 · from the GEIPAN archive
The witness is driving a car when their gaze is attracted by a light source, a sort of second sun. They stop the car and get out to photograph the phenomenon. The witness observed two types of phenomena (see annotated photo): - With their own eyes, they saw a "false" sun, with an iridescent outline: their testimony is typical of a parhelion located 22° from the sun. - On the photos taken with their smartphone, the witness noticed after the fact luminous "cylinders," opposite the sun: this phenomenon is typical of "flare," which is a reflection produced inside the lens. One can verify that these bright spots are symmetrical to the sun relative to the center of the image, which explains why they are not always located in the same place in the sky; their position depends on how the sun is framed in the image. This case is classified "A": observation of a parhelion in real time, and flares on the photos after the fact.
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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