Sighting in Marseille, September 2009

A witness sent the GEIPAN a photograph showing an object they had not noticed when taking the picture. They could not give an exact date and only said it was a weekend in September 2009. The phenomenon was therefore never observed directly: the object was only discovered afterwards, on the photo.

The investigation noted that analysing an image after the fact, with no visual account of the scene, is often difficult. In the photograph in question, the unidentified object looks like a bird: the underside of its wings can be made out, dark and in shadow. The case was classified B (probably identified), the explanation retained being a probable bird.