An account in Gard, France

On January 18, 2017 at around 10:10 a.m., a witness observed for 15 seconds from his window two intermittent trails of gray smoke in the clear sky. The witness is intrigued by these unusual traces that do not resemble classic airplane contrails. Only one testimony was collected. The observation is not very strange. The witness does not provide strong elements to reject his own hypothesis of an airplane (intermittent trails, absence of noise). Intermittent trails are fairly characteristic of military aircraft. The absence of noise noted can be explained in different ways. The aircraft could have been flying at high altitude and without afterburner (a classic case producing significant noise). Moreover, any possible noise from the aircraft could have been covered by the outside noises of the town of Saint-Ambroix. Although the witness stated that there was no outside noise during the observation, it can nonetheless be noted that the observation takes place in the very heart of a town of more than 3,000 inhabitants, with a major traffic axis located near the observation site, namely the D904, which is a former national road. Furthermore, the observation takes place on a weekday, a Wednesday morning. The hypothesis of a misidentification with a fragmented daytime bolide leaving persistent trails is excluded, since on the one hand the two smoke trails are too far apart from each other, and on the other hand accelerations were noted by the witness. Moreover, this kind of astronomical phenomenon is generally seen by many witnesses. The accelerations, for their part, recall two aircraft maneuvering. Although the UAP was not formally identified, the description provided by the witness leaves little doubt about the misidentification. The too-late consultation of military radars did not allow this hypothesis to be validated or not. The case is classified as B: probable observation of military aircraft trails.