Sighting in Puiselet-le-Marais, April 12, 2017

At 12:15 UTC, a pilot flying a Cessna noticed a very bright unidentified aerial phenomenon (UAP) above Etampes airfield. It quickly passed close to the aircraft. The pilot described it as a bubble that was not quite spherical, with a slightly elongated front and no visible means of propulsion. The pilot's spouse, a passenger on board, saw it too. The sighting lasted between 5 and 15 seconds. The pilot thought of a helicopter at first, then of a drone.

Only one account was collected: the second witness never returned the questionnaire despite GEIPAN's request. The only hypothesis examined was a mistaken drone sighting. It was plausible given the UAP's straight-line movement and an altitude a drone could technically reach, although that would be well above the 150 m limit. However, it could be neither verified nor retained: radars do not detect drones, the pilot stuck to their final reconstruction and could not give more precise details, the description of a very bright ball fits poorly with what drones are known to look like, and tracing an operator who would have been breaking the rules seemed unrealistic.

Strangeness was rated at 0.6 and consistency, lower, at 0.5, since some data were missing or unusable. GEIPAN classified the case as C, for lack of reliable data.