Sighting in Paris, February 14, 2017

At 19:56 one evening, a witness driving on the Paris ring road (the périphérique) noticed a white point of light that stayed motionless in the sky. They took a photograph of it with their mobile phone. The sighting lasted two to three minutes, until traffic began to move again; the witness then drove on and lost sight of it. They were the only person to report the event, and their account was only collected several months afterwards.

GEIPAN rated the case as having low strangeness and medium consistency. The object was white and bright and stayed still for several minutes. The direction of observation matched that of Venus very well, and the planet was particularly bright that evening. The photograph shows only a single street lamp as an urban feature, so the witness's exact position could not be determined, and the image also appears to have been taken tilted to one side. The witness also described just one bright white object, whereas they would have been expected to mention two if Venus had not been responsible. A doubt remains about the real angular height of the phenomenon, since the witness had a reduced field of view upward from inside the vehicle. The explanation could therefore not be formally confirmed, and the case was classified B: probable misidentification of Venus.