Sighting in Caluire-et-Cuire, November 20, 2014

An amateur astronomer was looking through a telescope at 9:29 p.m. when a small, blurry, bright ball with warm tones crossed the eyepiece. The witness was surprised by what they saw. They were the only witness, but their account was very precise.

The investigation found that the path of the phenomenon matched that of the satellite Cosmos 1636 perfectly, and that its movement was entirely typical of a satellite. The blurry ball was most likely a cloud of gas surrounding the satellite, made up of propellant left in its tanks and released during an incident of undetermined nature.

Because there was no second witness to cross-check the sighting, this hypothesis could not be confirmed. GEIPAN considered that the witness's visual perception was not the issue, but that their interpretation had been shaped by how they felt about the sighting: the faint brightness of the phenomenon and the rarity of what they were seeing. The case was classified B, probable observation of the satellite Cosmos 1636 surrounded by a gas cloud.