Sighting in Ailly-sur-Noye, October 22, 2013

At about 7:50 p.m., a motorist noticed something in the sky that puzzled them. They described a triangular object made up of three points of light, one red, one green and one blue. The object first hung motionless, then moved slowly and silently. Its lights then turned white and it vanished. Only this one witness was interviewed.

The investigation found that a scheduled flight was very probably passing at that time and in that direction. The lights outlining the triangle matched the navigation lights of that aircraft, and its movement followed that of the object, along the witness's line of sight. The object was hidden for a while by cloud, then for good, just as a high-altitude aircraft is masked by patchy cloud layers. GEIPAN therefore concluded that the witness had probably seen an airliner on the Venice/London service, lit by its navigation lights and temporarily concealed by cloud. The case was rated B rather than A because the aircraft's exact timing was uncertain and the colours of the lights reported by the witness were in doubt.