Sighting in Digne-les-Bains, June 13, 2023

Around 3 p.m., a witness who was in their garden noticed a silent white object in the sky, shaped like a gas tank. It looked stationary, but it was in fact moving slowly from the southeast toward the east. The sighting lasted between 10 and 20 seconds, until the object disappeared behind a layer of cloud.

The account was collected on 5 March 2024. With a single witness and no photo or video, GEIPAN rated the case's consistency as medium.

The investigation looked at three possibilities. A large weather balloon would only fit if it had lost altitude and begun to deflate partially. A zeppelin-type airship, possibly on its way to the 24 Hours of Le Mans, was ruled out after checks showed no such craft was in the region. An aircraft, possibly a military one, was judged the most plausible. The described shape matches a fuselage, and the wings may have been hidden by atmospheric scattering. The white colour is common on airliners, which points more toward a civil aircraft. The witness's estimates and the calculations (apparent size, altitude, distance and speed) are consistent with an aircraft in flight, and the impression of slowness can be explained by moderate speed at high altitude combined with perspective. The lack of a contrail is also consistent with atmospheric conditions that may not have favoured their formation.

The delay before GEIPAN received the questionnaire made it impossible to ask the CNOA for confirmation. Crowdsourced air traffic tracking platforms showed no matching aircraft, which could be due to a switched-off transponder or to the limits of such freely available data. The case was classified B: probable sighting of an aircraft.