Sighting in Les Arcs, December 18, 2014

Two witnesses noticed a luminous phenomenon in the sky at around 9 p.m. Looking at it through a camera zoom, they saw it change colour and move in every direction. One of them described it as a kind of star, larger than average and blinking, and later as a very mobile luminous object, like a kite. The observation lasted an hour.

The witness was near the railway station and gave only a rough direction, "above Draguignan", which corresponds to an azimuth between 335° and 360°. However, Draguignan cannot be seen directly from that spot, so the estimate was probably approximate. When contacted by phone, the witness said they had seen the same luminous point on several evenings in a row, in roughly the same place.

GEIPAN's investigation noted that Vega, a very bright star, was at 8.4° elevation and 317° azimuth at 9:24 p.m. A point of light visible for nearly an hour above the horizon, evening after evening, strongly suggests a star. The colour changes are explained by scintillation caused by atmospheric turbulence. The oscillations are also due to scintillation, as well as to the autokinetic illusion, a common perceptual effect when watching a point of light in the dark. Since the exact direction of observation is not known, the identification of the star is not certain. GEIPAN classified the case B: probable observation of a star above the horizon, with Vega appearing to be a good candidate.