Sighting in Gan, March 2, 2022

The witness was driving between Gan and Sévignacq-Meyracq when they pulled over to take a few photographs of the sky and clouds. They had not noticed anything unusual at the time. The Sun was in the frame of every picture. Back home, the witness saw that the photos showed a bright spot that sat in a different place from one image to the next. They sent their photographs and a questionnaire to GEIPAN, and later gave permission to publish the case.

After studying the photos, GEIPAN concluded that the spot was a stray-light effect produced inside the camera, a fairly common phenomenon. The Sun's signal is so strong that the image is saturated at that point. Despite anti-reflective coatings, a small share of the signal (typically under 1%) is reflected within the optical system, and that is enough to create a bright spot against a darker background. The spot appears opposite the Sun relative to the centre of the image, which marks the optical axis, and it moves symmetrically as the Sun's position changes between photos. Drawing the two diagonals of an image to find its centre, then a line joining the spot to the Sun, shows that the line passes through that centre. In optics this is known as a "ghost" or ghost image.

GEIPAN classified the case as A: photographic artefact.