Sighting in Narnhac, August 17, 2012

At 11:35 pm, a witness who was looking at the sky through binoculars saw a point of light moving in a zigzag and flashing irregularly. Their account was not collected until November 2013.

A check of satellite passes showed two satellites on a nearby path, Cosmos 2322 and Cosmos 2360, but both are faint. The flashing suggests an aircraft, whereas the zigzag path seemed at first hard to reconcile with that idea. However, airliners often fly over the area along a north-south axis, so the chance of an aircraft being on that track is very high. The zigzag is explained by a fairly common illusion: when an aircraft's anti-collision lights are synchronized in opposition, the alternating flashes of two widely spaced lights are read by the observer as a zigzag movement. The autokinetic illusion, which affects the perception of movement of a point of light in the sky, may have added to the effect.

GEIPAN classified the case as B: a probable aircraft, combined with a perceptual illusion caused by flashing lights and autokinesis.