Sighting in Montpellier, July 18, 2020

At around 10:10 p.m., a witness in their bedroom at home noticed a motionless white ball of light in a part of the sky where they had never seen anything like it. The view from the bedroom window is very open, and the witness often photographs the panorama from there. The light then began to move and left behind it what the witness described as "luminous emanations". The witness had time to film the scene and take photos with a mobile phone before the phenomenon passed out of view. Only one account was collected.

GEIPAN rated the case as having very low strangeness and very good consistency: there was a single witness, but the account was fairly precise and backed by photos and a video. The investigation concluded that the witness had mistaken Air France flight AF7684, an A320 arriving from Paris and landing at Montpellier. Its appearance and the description of the phenomenon are fully typical of an airliner approaching head-on. Its flight path matched the light's trajectory perfectly, at exactly the time the witness gave. The silence the witness reported is consistent, since the aircraft passed 2 km from the observation point. The case was classified A.