Sighting in Notre-Dame-d'Oé, July 5, 2013

On a July evening at about 8:45 p.m., a witness sitting on their terrace noticed a black object moving silently across the sky. They first took it for a bird with a black body and white wings, but a particular "effect" caught their attention. The white on the wings turned out to be light that seemed to sweep over the object from top to bottom. This feature alone led the witness to rule out a bird and to consider the object strange. The sighting lasted about 15 seconds, until the object vanished behind the roof of a house. It is the only account that was collected.

The investigation noted that the movement described was entirely similar to that of a bird. At sunset, low-angle sunlight can create bright reflections on birds' wings, even black ones, which is not very surprising. The unusual aspect of the case therefore lies solely in these pale reflections on dark wings. GEIPAN classified the case as B: probable observation of a black bird lit by the setting sun.