Sighting in Cuttoli-Corticchiato, April 7, 2021

One evening, between 8:35 and 8:40 pm, a witness and their spouse noticed a luminous phenomenon moving across the sky without making any noise. The witness recorded a video on a smartphone, whose camera had poor definition. GEIPAN rated the consistency of the case as good: a single testimony, backed by a usable video.

The detailed analysis in the investigation showed that the witnesses had seen a stage of a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket. It had just released its Starlink satellite constellation and was in its deorbit phase, before a controlled fall into the ocean. The diffuse, white, point-like shape matches what is usually seen when a stage vents its residual gases, lit by the sun at an altitude of about 270 km. The object may in fact have been butterfly-shaped, but that shape could not be clearly made out with the naked eye or in the video. The movement was steady and in a straight line. The CNES Centre d'Orbitographie Opérationnelle confirmed that the rocket stage was present at the initial and final azimuths of the observation.

The gases were visible because the second stage was making a controlled re-entry, with its engine reignited and its tanks passivated, close to France. Night had already fallen at ground level, but the stage was still lit by the sun, as if sunset had occurred about an hour before the observation. GEIPAN classified the case as A: observation of a Falcon 9 rocket stage in its deorbit phase.