A triangle shape in Seine-Maritime, France

On September 6, 2015 at about 10:40 a.m., a female driver is surprised by a shadow that seems to hide the sun. While driving and leaning forward, the driver sees, through the windshield, a triangular shape slightly curved on the sides with a lighter circle at each end. The whole thing is matte black in color. Alerted, the front passenger opens the window but sees nothing. The driver continues on her way. A little further on, both witnesses will see the phenomenon move away in the direction of Breteville (50). No noise is heard. No light is seen. Only one testimony is collected. The airplane hypothesis is the most likely (see the investigation report). Indeed, on Sunday, September 6, 2015, there was an event 13 kilometers from there further west. It was to honor the pilots of the Great War and two Rafale aircraft of the French army flew over the Bay of Étretat around 10:30 a.m. It is entirely possible that one of these aircraft flew over exactly the location of the observation and is its origin. The witness's description of the aircraft may suggest a Rafale, with differences that may result from difficult observation conditions (the main observation was quick because it was made by a driver just before a roundabout). It is the absence of noise that most surprised the two witnesses and the fact that apparently no one else observed this phenomenon — "it was a Sunday morning, there were walkers, other vehicles." But it is possible under certain conditions not to hear the noise of an aircraft (see on this subject the excellent study by Gaelle Fedoce), and GEIPAN also knows from experience that visual surprise can mask or inhibit sound perception. The fact that there were no other testimonies actually argues in favor of the airplane hypothesis. Other people may have observed in better conditions the same thing as the two witnesses and recognized an airplane, in which case there was no need to report it. Lacking radar data for this observation and the exact flight paths of these two Rafales, we cannot definitively validate the hypothesis that a Rafale could have flown over the witnesses' car. The second hypothesis, that a civilian or military drone was in the area, is less likely (angular evolution too rapid). Consequently, GEIPAN classifies the case as B: probable misidentification with an airplane.