Sighting in Hontanx, November 25, 2020

At around 8 a.m., the witness stepped out into their garden, which has a very open view. In the distance they saw something they first took for an aircraft, but it left no engine trail. It looked more like an incandescent tail disappearing behind a cloud. They thought of a meteorite, but felt the movement was too slow for one. They filmed the object. No one else reported seeing it.

The witness placed the sighting toward the east, but the video shows movement from right to left, meaning from the south-west to the north-east. Using Google Earth Pro, the church landmark and the witness's position at the garden entrance give an azimuth of 130°. Analysis of the video and the light of the rising sun (at 117° at that hour) point instead to about 115°, with the phenomenon slightly north of the sun. A small shift of position within the garden is enough to change the azimuth by several degrees, so the investigation used 120° give or take 10°.

The shape and colour seen in the video suggested a misidentified aircraft contrail. A Flightradar24 search turned up a possible candidate: a Boeing 747, 115 to 130 km from the site, travelling from south-west to north-east. At sunrise, contrails can show striking colours, shadows and lighting. When the air at altitude is very humid, they persist, spread and disperse with the high-altitude winds. The aircraft itself may not be visible, or no longer visible, because the sun does not light it or because it is already far away. GEIPAN classified the case as A: contrail.