Sighting in Couëron, July 3, 2015

At around 1:10 in the morning, under a very dark sky, a witness saw four "stars" lined up in a row, tilted to the right and evenly spaced. The group then broke apart: the points of light followed different paths, in two pairs, and the lights eventually went out.

Investigators compared this description with satellite passes listed on the Calsky website. At that exact moment, two pairs of conspicuous satellites were crossing the sky: the USA 62/NOSS 2-1C and USA 62/NOSS 2-1B pair, and the ADEOS 2 H2A Rocket together with the Yaogan 1 LM Rocket debris, the brightest of the four. These last two look as if they travel together, but are actually at very different altitudes. What the witness described matched the Calsky simulation exactly, which is built from orbital parameters published by NORAD. Another pair, Cosmos 1689 Rocket and Landsat 5, had been visible on a nearby path a few minutes earlier.

The street lighting had been switched off, which probably made this fairly exceptional coordinated pass stand out more to the witness. At this time of year, a large number of satellites can be seen on paths running close to south-north or north-south. GEIPAN classified the case as A: observation of satellites.