Sighting in Malemort-sur-Corrèze, August 26, 2020

One evening, a witness was with friends when their partner's child called out, saying an object was moving "from bottom to top". Everyone looked in the direction indicated and, for about six minutes, watched nine bright objects pass at high speed. Their brightness was comparable to a star, with some looking brighter than others. They came from the west (around 300°) and moved off in pairs toward roughly 53° north of the observers' position. No sound was heard. The Moon, at first quarter and very bright, was due south, behind the witness.

The case was rated as moderately strange and of good consistency: there were several witnesses, but a single account summarized all the observations, and there was no photo. GEIPAN concluded it was probably a misidentification of Starlink satellites. The description fits a Starlink pass very well, and the sighting took place less than three weeks after the launch of Starlink train no. 9, whose satellites had not yet spread out much and were passing in the minutes around the time reported. Some uncertainty remains, however: at the time the witness gave, a Starlink train was indeed passing, but at a lower angular height than the one estimated for the phenomenon. The case was classified B.