An account in Nord, France

On October 5, 2016 at sunrise, a witness observes 3 motionless black dots that move closer together to form a conical shape. After this shape disappears, another elongated white shape appears in the sky and remains visible and motionless until 11:30 a.m. The witness takes photographs. No other testimony is collected on this phenomenon. According to the investigation report (see attached document), the retained hypothesis is that of confusion with an isolated group of three migratory birds heading toward the Southeast, poorly perceived by the witness due to the poor quality of the optics used and the distance of the birds not allowing their shape to be clearly distinguished. The testimony is weakly consistent, with little data provided by the witness that could be used; the questionnaire was not completed and the Gendarmerie report is very brief. However, there are 15 photographs, but only a few of them were provided in original version and could therefore be used for the case analysis. The photo analysis processing (in particular the multi-temporal analysis with the IPACO software) helps consolidate the hypothesis despite the initially poor quality of the photos. This case is classified as "A", as an extremely probable observation of an isolated group of three migratory birds heading toward the Southeast; the poor quality of the optics as well as the distance of the birds not allowing their shape to be clearly distinguished.