Sighting in Agen, July 16, 2013

At about 10:45 pm, the witness was lying on their terrace looking at the stars. They saw three whitish "discs" arranged in a triangle pass quickly and silently through a hazy sky. A faint halo surrounded them. After about thirty seconds, the objects vanished at the horizon. No other account was collected.

The sky was overcast. Air traffic at high altitude, between 7,000 and 12,000 m, was fairly busy, but it could not account for what was observed.

GEIPAN looked at several possibilities. A nightclub laser seemed unlikely, as the observation appeared too short, and the witness, who had thought of it, ruled it out too. Seagulls lit by city lights and moving through low cloud raised difficulties: it is surprising that birds would stay lit as they climbed, and the apparent size (two thirds of the Moon) and circular shape fit this idea poorly; the witness rejected it as well. However, the way the phenomenon moved was fairly consistent with birds, and the witness noted that the gulls seemed to react to it. Finally, an eye problem or an ocular migraine causing phosphenes was compatible with the blurred outlines and the impression of flat lights, but checking this afterwards through a medical examination would be difficult.

Since none of these hypotheses could be confirmed, and the phenomenon was distant and indistinct, GEIPAN classified the case as category C, owing to a lack of information and cross-checking.