Sighting in Paris, January 9, 2014
Île-de-France, France
Sighting on January 9, 2014, exact location not given (département: Paris, France). GEIPAN identified the phenomenon with certainty: it was an aircraft (plane, helicopter…) (class A).
What happened
At 9:35 in the morning, a witness driving on the A6 motorway, heading from the provinces toward Paris, noticed a very bright, dazzling white object in the sky between two clouds. The sighting lasted only three quarters of a second. The witness was looking due north at the time.
Investigators checked the Casperflights record of commercial flights. At 9:37, in that direction, an Airbus A321 operating flight AF620 JL was climbing between 2,500 and 3,000 m after taking off from Roissy. Its orientation was ideal for the fuselage to reflect the light of the rising sun toward the driver. The wings, lying in a horizontal plane, do not reflect the sun and are therefore barely visible.
The GEIPAN classified the case as A: the witness had seen the sun's reflection on an aircraft.
Account rewritten by SkyUnknown from the investigation report published by GEIPAN (CNES). The original text and case documents are on the official record.
- Date
- January 9, 2014
- Location
- Paris · region only
- Type of sighting
- From the ground
- Source classification
- A
- Explanation
- Aircraft
Sources
- See the original document
GEIPAN (CNES)
n° 2014-01-08655
Summary written by SkyUnknown from the facts published by the source.