Sighting in Mons, January 21, 2018

At about 11:55 a.m., a passenger in a moving car took two photographs one after the other. On the first, they noticed a round brown object in the sky. The second picture showed nothing of the kind. Only one witness account was collected.

Asked whether anyone else had seen the same phenomenon, the witness answered that only they had, through the lens of their camera. GEIPAN therefore considered it most likely that the witness never saw the phenomenon directly with their own eyes, only on the image.

Based on its experience, GEIPAN judged this to be most probably a camera artefact: likely an insect or a bird close to the camera, which the eye cannot catch but a digital camera records, even at 1/400 of a second. The case was classified B, probably identified, as a probable misinterpretation of a photograph. GEIPAN also notes that for several years it has no longer investigated accounts that do not show the strange sight was observed directly by the eyes, without an optical instrument. Images from such instruments are only taken into account when they come in addition.