Sighting in Avrieux, July 14, 2022

On the evening of 14 July, the witness was in the garden at home, waiting for the fireworks displays in the neighbouring villages. At about 10:15 pm or 10:23 pm, depending on their own account, a white ball appeared in the sky and moved in a straight line from the southwest toward the northeast. The witness followed it for around five minutes until a mountain hid it from view, and had time to film it with a mobile phone.

The GEIPAN rated the consistency of the case as medium: there was only one witness, and the video, blurred because the focus was not set properly, does not allow the movement to be assessed and shows no contextual information.

The investigation established that the witness had seen the International Space Station (ISS). The "ball" shape is typical of how witnesses describe a very bright satellite; it may also reflect what the witness saw on the video rather than with the naked eye, though nothing in the testimony confirms this. The white colour, the duration of about five minutes (against a maximum possible visibility of six and a half minutes) and the straight-line motion all match the ISS, which was indeed in the sky around 10:32 pm, the creation time of the video file. Its path agrees with the estimated orientation, from appearance in the southwest to disappearance behind a mountain to the east-northeast. The high surrounding mountains hid the start and end of the pass, at 10° elevation. The case was classified A: observation of the ISS.