Sighting in Pauillac, December 29, 2014
Gironde, Nouvelle-Aquitaine, France
Sighting on December 29, 2014 in Pauillac (Gironde, France). GEIPAN identified the phenomenon with certainty: it was the planet Venus (class A).
What happened
In the late afternoon, the witness noticed a bright white disc in the sky that appeared to be moving downward. Puzzled, they took a photograph and asked the GEIPAN for an explanation. The witness gave the time of the sighting as around 6:30 p.m.
Checks carried out on the photograph established the actual time it was taken: around 6:05 p.m. They also made it possible to identify the points of light visible in the image. What the witness took for a "star" was in fact a "hot" or "dead" pixel on the camera's sensor. It always appeared at the same position, looking very sharp and fluorescent green, and it showed up at the same spot in later photos. The large bright point near the horizon, which the witness had marked with the words "and this?", was the planet Venus. At that hour, no other celestial body was visible, except perhaps Mars.
The GEIPAN therefore classified the case as A: the observation was of the planet Venus.
Account rewritten by SkyUnknown from the investigation report published by GEIPAN (CNES). The original text and case documents are on the official record.
- Date
- December 29, 2014
- Location
- Pauillac · town centre
- Type of sighting
- From the ground
- Source classification
- A
- Explanation
- Planets
Sources
- See the original document
GEIPAN (CNES)
n° 2014-12-09065
Summary written by SkyUnknown from the facts published by the source.