Sighting in Nantes, October 20, 2013

Between midnight and one in the morning, two people walking together noticed a group of lights in the sky, spaced evenly apart and forming a triangle. They were intrigued by what they saw. Only one witness account was collected by GEIPAN. Among the lights, only one was orange.

The investigation rated the case as having moderate strangeness and moderate consistency. It concluded that the witnesses had certainly mistaken the Hyades star cluster for something unusual: the cluster was clearly visible in the direction the witness indicated, and the arrangement of the lights matched the positions of the cluster's stars exactly. The single orange light fits Aldebaran, a star next to the Hyades, which can look that color. According to GEIPAN, the witness's visual perception was not at fault; what mattered was their interpretation, shaped by how they felt: surprise, tiredness, walking at night, and clouds that may have created an illusion of movement. The case was classified A.