Sighting in Meyrueis, September 21, 2014

At about 9 p.m., a driver and their passengers noticed coloured lights in the sky and could not tell what they were. Only one account was collected from the group.

The investigation relied on several findings. The colour of the lights, their regular blinking and their lack of movement matched the mandatory night-time lighting of wind turbines. Visibility was excellent, so the lights could be seen from a long way off, and they sat low in the sky. Azimuth readings and terrain profile measurements showed that the turbine lights were visible from the successive positions where the witnesses stood. The impression of movement was explained by the lack of landmarks, which prevented the witness from judging the azimuths correctly. In addition, a Calsky calculation confirmed that a bright flare of magnitude -7.0 from an Iridium satellite was visible from the witnesses' first position around the time of the sighting. Its quick disappearance fitted the short visibility of such flares.

GEIPAN concluded that the witnesses first saw, towards the west and at the same moment, the lighting of a first group of wind turbines and a flare from an Iridium satellite, and then, towards the southwest, the lighting of a second group of turbines. The case is classified A: a certain observation of the night-time lighting of two separate groups of wind turbines and of an Iridium flare.