Sighting in Le Conquet, May 22, 2016

At around 11 p.m., the main witness was at home when their spouse pointed out what looked like a star that seemed to move slightly. To the naked eye, it was a pale white-yellow point of light moving slowly. The witness took two photographs with a camera fitted with a telephoto lens before the object was hidden behind the gable of the neighbour's house. In the photos, the object looked like a cylinder with an erratic shape. Later, while viewing the pictures on a computer, the witness noticed four other identical shapes, less bright. Only the main witness reported the sighting to the GEIPAN, but the two analysable photographs mean the case's consistency is good.

The investigation tested the hypothesis that the main object was the planet Mars and the other four were stars. The point seen with the naked eye matches the appearance of Mars, and its very pale yellow colour sets it apart from a star. The cylinder shape and the zigzag in the photos are artefacts caused by the exposure time (0.625 s) combined with camera shake. The changing "red-green" colour of another point matches the twinkling of a star very low on the horizon. The GEIPAN's IPACO software was used to overlay a photograph on a sky chart, and Mars and stars of Scorpius (Dschubba, Acrab and the two optical double stars Jabhat Acrabi) matched the points closely. The azimuth was badly estimated, off by more than 45°, probably because the witness had become disoriented. The elevation was overestimated: 45° according to the witness, against under 8° in reality, since the strong telephoto zoom is misleading. Mars was indeed visible at the time, and the very slow movement matches its apparent drift, due to the Earth's rotation.

The GEIPAN classified the case as A: Mars and stars.