Sighting in Lescar, November 6, 2013

At around 6 p.m., several people noticed what looked like a fireball of bright orange in the sky, followed by a number of slanting trails of the same colour. One of the witnesses filmed the scene. Only one witness account was collected during the investigation.

The bright orange streaks seen in the sunset sky strongly suggested contrails from distant aircraft, lit up by a sun that had already dropped below the horizon. The video supports this, as does the "Casperflights" record of commercial flights, which shows very heavy traffic in the area at that time (routes between Northern Europe and Spain, Portugal and Morocco). The first video, showing a vertical trail heading downward, matches an aircraft moving away from the witnesses. The other, horizontal trails match aircraft flying from north to south, about fifty kilometres west of Pau. Exceptional weather conditions made the display especially striking that evening.

GEIPAN classified the case as A: the sighting was of aircraft contrails.