Sighting in Le Lude, December 3, 2017

Shortly after midnight, a witness was filming outdoors with a smartphone in camera mode. A bright light suddenly appeared to their right, and they heard a double clicking sound coming from their left. The whole event lasted only two seconds. Back at home, the witness found that the object had been recorded and that the sound on the recording was much clearer than what they had heard at the time. No other witness account was collected.

Analysis of the video led GEIPAN to conclude that the object was a small thing moving quickly very close to the lens, most likely an insect. Its elongated shape came from its fast movement combined with the exposure time of each frame, and its apparent length shrank, probably because its path was not parallel to the lens plane. The flash, which fired automatically at night, lit it strongly and gave it its white colour, which shows it was close, since the flash has a very limited range. Two kinds of blur are combined in the image: a horizontal motion blur and a focus blur in both directions, which confirms the object's proximity and small size. That closeness also explains why the light looked so bright to the witness. The recorded sound resembles a breath synchronised with the object's passage, at a level comparable to the witness's own breathing, consistent with an insect; with another kind of object, the wind from its movement would have been recorded. GEIPAN classified the case as B: probable observation of an insect drawn into the flash's light as it passed.