An account in Sarthe, France

The witnesses' photo is characteristic of a horseshoe-shaped airplane contrail. This particular shape is caused by the ejections that spread away from the airplane's fuselage before joining together in its wake. The airplane's direction moving away from the witness (and not moving transversally) allows a lasting separate view of the two trails. The particularity of the trail in the witness's case comes from the lighting conditions. Very often these trails are luminous because they are directly lit by the sun. Here, the trail is not directly lit by the sun (Earth's shadow) but the background in the witness's line of sight is made up of a high part of the sky still lit by the sun, which therefore allows the trail to stand out against a brighter background. Moreover, one can clearly see a brightness increasing toward the top in the witness's photo. Flightradar shows several possible airplanes in the direction indicated by the witnesses (southeast of Ancinnes near Alençon) and at the indicated time (after 6:10 PM local, 5:10 PM UTC). One track very likely corresponds to the UAP because the airplane is seen by the witness from "below and behind," which gives the upward orientation of the horseshoe of the trail. On the other hand, this track is indeed in the zone that is no longer lit by the sun. The attached "reconstruction" document details these explanations. The witnesses indicate a duration on the order of 10 minutes. This is not consistent with an airplane trail that changes a lot in the sky over that duration. The observation was shorter, and the overestimation of duration is a classic error. Moreover, the two witness photos dated one minute apart do not show the same trail. Consequently, GEIPAN classifies the case as A: observation of airplane contrails.