Sighting in Gap, February 25, 2015

At around 6:10 p.m., a witness driving a car noticed a colored phenomenon very high in the sky, toward the northwest. The sky was very clear, and an aircraft was passing nearby. The witness described a very bright yellow or red oval, watched for five minutes against the light as the sun was setting.

According to GEIPAN, this description suggests a small mass of cloud backlit by the setting sun. Water vapor from an aircraft contrail was also considered, but contrails usually look like a spindle or a V shape, so a cloud was judged more likely. The fact that the object vanished within one or two minutes is not very surprising. The case was classified B: probable observation of a small cloud at sunset.