Sighting in Argol, October 29, 2025

One autumn evening at 19:27, a witness was outdoors looking south/south-west when a white light suddenly appeared in the west, emerging from behind the foliage of an oak tree. It stayed fixed and did not blink, and its brightness resembled that of Venus or an aircraft. The witness thought of a reflection of the Moon. The light seemed to bring out a larger shape, a rectangle ranging from dark grey to black. They tried to film the scene. They supplied sketches showing the phenomenon from several angles, but the video could not be technically analysed. GEIPAN rated the consistency of the testimony as good, as the witness had been precise.

The investigation favoured the hypothesis of a fuel dump from the second stage of a Falcon 9 rocket, launched from Florida the same day with 29 Starlink satellites. The sighting took place about 1 h 55 min after liftoff, at the time when such a stage routinely vents its residual propellant. These very bright plumes can be seen from far away when the stage is lit by the Sun while the ground is in twilight, which was the case that evening. The phenomenon was also reported in Ireland during the same time window, and in Finistère, about thirty kilometres away, at the same time. Its direction, from west toward east-south-east, matches an orbit inclined at 53°. The "dark rectangle" is explained by known perceptual effects, and structured shapes are very often described for Falcon 9 objects at dusk; the sketches match those descriptions. However, the witness's computer reconstruction exaggerates the shapes and adds to the strangeness. Since the residual strangeness was low, GEIPAN classified the case as A: venting from a stage of the Falcon 9 Starlink 10-37 launcher.