Sighting in Longeville-lès-Metz, March 31, 2018

On a Saturday at 7:37 p.m., the witness, who was standing at a window, noticed a white, elongated object in a clear sky. It moved fast in a straight line toward the southeast. The witness filmed it and, after 50 seconds, went back to what they had been doing. Only one account was collected, along with the video.

The investigation established that the witness had seen an aircraft. In the video, the object crosses the field of view from a house facing southeast, and the sound of an aircraft can be heard. A reconstruction confirmed that a plane was passing at that moment, flying from southwest to northeast, so parallel to the horizon, at an elevation of about 45°, which matches the footage. The witness did not recognize it as an aircraft. Three things puzzled them. First, the altitude, which they felt was lower than a plane's: the aircraft was at 9,000 m, lower than a typical cruising altitude. Second, the cigar shape: the very low sun lit the plane from the side, so the fuselage reflected strongly while the only visible wing, seen edge-on, reflected little or no light. Third, the lack of a contrail, which is not unusual, as contrails are far from systematic and depend on atmospheric conditions and altitude. GEIPAN therefore classified the case as A: aircraft.