Sighting in Massac-Séran, June 21, 2013
Tarn, Occitanie, France
Sighting on June 21, 2013 in Massac-Séran (Tarn, France). GEIPAN identified the phenomenon with certainty: it was the star Arcturus (class A).
What happened
A witness noticed a motionless object in the night sky toward the west. It flashed and its colors kept changing. They photographed it between 4:23 and 4:30 a.m. They also sent the GEIPAN two daytime pictures of the same spot, taken in the same direction, which made it possible to place the object precisely in the landscape.
The investigation relied on the object's color, a very pronounced twinkling, and its height and azimuth. These all matched the star Arcturus, low on the horizon, where its light is strongly affected by scintillation. The GEIPAN classified the case as A: a definite sighting of that star.
Account rewritten by SkyUnknown from the investigation report published by GEIPAN (CNES). The original text and case documents are on the official record.
- Date
- June 21, 2013
- Location
- Massac-Séran · town centre
- Type of sighting
- From the ground
- Source classification
- A
- Explanation
- Stars
Sources
- See the original document
GEIPAN (CNES)
n° 2013-06-08481
Summary written by SkyUnknown from the facts published by the source.