Sighting in Paris, December 2, 2011

A witness standing at their window in the evening, between 9:15 and 9:30 pm, saw a bright point of light cross the sky over Paris at high speed on a straight path. After five or six seconds the point flared up and an egg-shaped, orange object appeared. The witness noticed no trail and no halo. The object then began to spin, came to a halt, and after three turns moved in zigzags before setting off again at a slow pace. A building then hid it from view. The sky was clear and no particular sound was heard. The whole sighting lasted about twenty seconds.

Only one account was collected. According to the investigation, the start looked like an ordinary meteoroid entering the atmosphere (a fireball), but the spiral ending is impossible for a celestial body. At that time of day and in that season very few satellites are visible. The first part could match a satellite briefly reflecting sunlight (a flare), but that does not explain the ending at all. It could also be two unrelated phenomena, yet luminous objects moving in a spiral are extremely rare, especially at that speed. With a single witness in a heavily urbanized area, the case lacks the consistency needed to characterize such an unusual phenomenon. GEIPAN classified it C, for lack of corroborating evidence.