Sighting in Cléden-Cap-Sizun, April 8, 2019

One evening, a witness was on the first-floor terrace of a holiday cottage with their daughters, with an open view over the ocean. They had taken two photographs of the setting sun from there. After dinner, the family went back out to look at the starry sky. They all noticed three blue-white luminous balls lined up horizontally, motionless and silent. The witness took three photographs of them. They then lost sight of the lights in the camera view and took a photo at random in burst mode, followed by a last one taken quickly on the right-hand part of a pine tree. At that point the witness felt the spheres seemed to be moving away. They could not understand what they had seen and photographed.

Only one account was collected. It was very consistent: the witness described the observation in detail, including angular data. All five photographs could be analysed.

The investigation established that two separate phenomena had been observed. First, the three belt stars of Orion (Alnitak, Alnilam and Mintaka), identified from their immobility, bluish-white colour, azimuth and elevation, and the angular distance between them. Second, either the street lighting on the Île de Sein or a boat heading north through the Raz de Sein, based on azimuth and elevation. The witness did not know the area and had no knowledge of astronomy. The darkness prevented them from seeing the horizon line. A tree in the line of sight, their probable movements on the terrace and the difficulty of framing the lights made the observation discontinuous. The witness also looked in the last photo for their own UAPs and found three lights arranged in a similar way, but lower and closer together. They therefore took the two phenomena for a single one. That last photograph is an indirect observation, and only the star phenomenon was retained. GEIPAN classified the case as A.