Sighting in Noé, May 26, 2021

At around 11 p.m., from the terrace of their home, the witness saw a phenomenon in the night sky that they described as a cylindrical halo of light. A small cloud sat at its centre, with a star above it. On either side of the cloud, inside the halo, there were undulations resembling waves. A very bright rectangle followed the halo. The whole thing moved in a straight line from west to east, making no sound.

The investigation showed that this was the effect of the ignition of the last stage of a Falcon 9 rocket, fired to deorbit it after it had launched the Starlink batch no. 28 satellites. The phenomenon was seen over a wide area of France and Spain, at a time very close to the one the witness gave. The description (a halo, a star) fits well, and the trajectory, running northwest to southeast with an almost vertical pass to the northeast of the observation site, matches that of the rocket stage. The bright rectangle may have been the Starlink satellites, not yet dispersed. The large apparent size, the intense brightness and an underestimated distance (the operation took place more than 100 km up) added to the strangeness the witness felt and led to an overestimate of its size. The duration was probably overestimated too, as it was most likely under 15 minutes. The case was classified A. GEIPAN noted that another case, on the same date and at the same time, had an identical description.