An account in Seine-Maritime, France

On Sunday, April 17, 2016 at around 9:12 PM, a couple is intrigued by the presence in the clear sky of a round and bright shape with a particular shimmering of several colors. The Moon is visible to the left of the point, as well as another very bright star. One witness takes a video (this video is temporarily removed from the publication due to a technical problem). The witnesses will look at the sky again around 10:25 PM but the object will have disappeared. A work colleague reportedly saw the same thing. Only one testimony is collected. The case is well documented (photo, video) and of low strangeness. The description of the phenomenon "a pinhead" as well as the shimmering correspond to that of a star. The witness was surprised by Sirius, which often happens. Sirius (El 17°, Az 214°) is in a direction consistent with the witness's description with his reference point relative to the roof across the street (photo and sketch). The color changes can be explained by atmospheric turbulence. The witnesses noticed that unlike the phenomenon that intrigued them, the star near the moon did not shimmer—which is accurate since it was Jupiter and the effect of turbulence is not perceptible on planets (see the following article: scintillation). The movements "in a straight line from left to right, back and forth" are fairly classic when observing a star. This is the autokinetic effect. The witness confirms that these movements remained small in magnitude. The lack of disconnection from a visual reference (roof across the street) reduces the possibilities of autokinesis without entirely excluding it. A misidentification with the ISS is very unlikely. Indeed, the airplane that the witness saw above the UAP was identified and the time of its passage in the direction of the UAP is later than the time of the station's disappearance. The hypothesis of an observation of Procyon is to be ruled out. The deviation from the UAP's reference point above the roof is too large and above all the airplane is seen above the UAP while its elevation (which can be accurately reconstructed at 20°) is lower than that of Procyon. Sirius is indeed visible lower than the airplane and attracts the eye and misidentifications more than Procyon (because it is much brighter, more subject to color change effects and shimmering because it is lower in elevation). At 10:25 PM, when they went back outside, the witnesses noted that the phenomenon was no longer there, which can be explained by the presence of a cloud (present that day) in front of the star, and even more certainly, regarding the Sirius hypothesis, by its disappearance behind the roof (elevation then of 9°). In this set with multiple hypotheses, Sirius stands out as a very strong hypothesis. GEIPAN classifies the case as A: misidentification with Sirius.