Sighting in Angers, June 12, 2014

At 10:15 pm on a June evening, a witness saw two orange luminous phenomena in the sky and photographed them. The pictures strongly resemble aircraft contrails made very bright by the setting sun.

The sun had set at 9:57 pm, less than 20 minutes before the sighting, and was almost 3° below the horizon. At 10,000 m, the minimum cruising altitude for medium- and long-haul flights, it was still visible and lit the trails. The aircraft was moving away from the witness toward the northwest, in the direction of the sunset. The trail was actually parallel to the ground, but seen from below at a shallow angle it looked vertical.

The two parallel trails, which changed direction together, suggested two military aircraft rather than two airliners. GEIPAN was unable to obtain the information needed in time to settle this uncertainty. It classified the case as B: observation of aircraft condensation trails.