Sighting in Martigues, August 13, 2021

The witness was in the garden of their home with their nephew. At around 3 a.m. local time, they noticed a point of light in the sky that seemed to be moving very slowly. By the time they had alerted the nephew, the point had stopped moving. Shortly afterwards the nephew also spotted a point which, in his words, "moved strangely": it advanced a little, went back, shifted to the right and then to the left, and each time returned to the same spot. These movements were almost imperceptible. The witness tried to film it but without success.

The observation lasted about two hours, on and off, and the two of them also watched some shooting stars and satellites during that time. They went back inside to sleep around 5 a.m. When contacted by phone in November 2021, the witness described a small point that looked very far away, no bigger than a star, located toward the east (azimuth close to 90°). The elevation could not be established precisely.

Given the duration and the description, GEIPAN considered an astronomical misidentification. Stellarium showed that Aldebaran, a variable double star, was in the east between 3 and 5 a.m., with an azimuth of 79° to 100° and an elevation of 13° to 35°. Because the witnesses did not watch it continuously, they may not have noticed this change of position. Its magnitude of 0.85 fits with a point fainter than a star. The apparent movements are explained by the autokinetic effect, an optical illusion that makes a fixed light seem to move against a dark night sky with few reference points. GEIPAN concluded that the witnesses had observed the star Aldebaran and classified the case as A.