Sighting in Ruch, August 15, 2007

The witness reported this observation in 2013, six years after it happened. On the evening of 15 August 2007, at about 11:45 p.m., they were driving when they noticed a large luminous disc, which they first took for the Moon. The landscape then hid the phenomenon for a few minutes, and when the view cleared it was no longer visible.

The investigation checked the positions of the celestial bodies. The Moon, a late crescent, had set more than an hour earlier and could not have been visible. Jupiter, however, was very close to the direction the witness indicated and was particularly bright (magnitude -2). It remains surprising that it would have looked as large as the Moon. According to Meteociel, the sky was overcast with intermittent rain. Two possibilities were considered: scattering of Jupiter's light by low clouds, producing a halo around the planet, or the headlight of a farm vehicle on a ridge, seen through the mist left by the rain.

It is hard to decide between these hypotheses so long afterwards. GEIPAN classified the case as C because of insufficient information and a lack of corroboration.