Sighting in Bartenheim, August 15, 2024

On the way back from a concert in Basel, the witness was driving on the A35 motorway while their spouse slept in the passenger seat. At about 11:52 pm, shortly before the Kembs/Sierentz exit, the witness noticed through the open window on the left three flashing red lights in the sky, along with a white point they took for a star. The lights formed an almost equilateral triangle, and the flashing was intermittent.

The witness woke their spouse, who also saw the lights and thought of an aircraft. At the witness's request, the spouse, half asleep, made a video, then put the phone down and went back to sleep. The witness kept watching: the red lights, at first steady, shrank as if moving away toward Sierentz. They were sometimes hidden by trees lining the motorway. After taking the exit, the witness got out of the car at 11:55 pm and could no longer see anything in the sky. The observation lasted about 3 minutes, with no sound noticed.

The investigation showed that two distinct but fairly similar phenomena were involved, which probably added to the confusion. Aeronautical charts show a military aircraft in the line of sight, following the motorway in the same direction. It could not be formally identified, but its zigzag path, its IFF code typical of military codes, and its disappearance from the charts in that direction near the Luxeuil air base support the hypothesis. The lack of noise is explained by the distance, the high altitude and the noise of the moving car. In the video, the appearance and apparent motion of the phenomenon suggest reflections, since the phone was filming toward the windscreen. Analysis identified the source: the lights of an electric window control panel. GEIPAN therefore classed the case B for the visual sighting (probable military aircraft) and A for the video (reflections).