Sighting in Jaunay-Clan, July 17, 2013

At around 11:50 pm, from home, the witness noticed a stationary, bright white light with a golden tint in the sky. They watched it for about a minute, after which it went out. It came back on for roughly thirty seconds before vanishing for good. No one else came forward as a witness, and no photo was taken.

GEIPAN looked at three possible explanations. A planet briefly hidden by clouds could have created this impression, but the sky chart shows no bright object to the south-east. A reflection of sunlight off a satellite would have looked similar, but it would have been shorter and would not have stayed fixed for a minute. A check with the Calsky website showed several satellites in the witness's field of view at that time, along with two Iridium satellite flares at 11:45 pm and 11:54 pm, but both lay in the opposite direction to the one the witness described. Finally, an aircraft seen head-on with its landing light on can look like a fixed point, and seems to disappear when it changes heading and the witness is no longer in line with the beam. This could not be confirmed with air traffic control in time.

The case, not very strange and of average consistency because it rests on a single witness with no photo, was classified C because the information could not be cross-checked.