Sighting in Abidjan, April 8, 2023

On the night of 7 to 8 April 2023, during a flight from Abidjan to Paris, one of the pilots, with some of the crew nearby, saw four white luminous phenomena starting at 00:40 and lasting about an hour. Their brightness varied, they moved quickly and their direction seemed to change. They appeared very distant. They lay between 20 and 30 degrees from the aircraft's axis and between +10 and +20 degrees relative to its pitch attitude. Only the captain filmed the scene and gave a statement. The sky was perfectly clear, with little light on the ground. As the aircraft neared Algiers, the moving points gradually dimmed until they disappeared. On 27 June 2023, the witness provided further details about the movements of the four phenomena.

The investigation found that one of them, which stayed stationary, matched the star Vega in azimuth and elevation. For the other three, rapid brightness changes over about 20 seconds pointed to sunlight reflecting off satellites' solar panels or metal surfaces. Online research linked this to many reports of Starlink cluster flares, seen when the Sun is 30 to 45° below the horizon, at about 45° from the vertical of the Sun. As satellites on different orbital planes pass through the area, they can seem to follow varied paths. The Sun's position, the observation area and the description all matched flashes from operational Starlink satellites in every respect.

The case showed low strangeness and good consistency: a single but fairly complete account, with a video. On 29 November 2023, the witness reported a similar sighting on a Cayenne-Paris flight over the Bay of Biscay, under solar conditions that were also favourable. GEIPAN classified the case as A. It closely resembles three other investigated cases, and these four files served as the basis for a technical note and a news item.