Sighting in Ruffec, September 13, 2022

At around 9:00 pm, from the garden of their home, the witness noticed a white point of light in the west moving along an arc. The movement repeated in cycles, always in the same part of the sky: the light appeared, then vanished, with each cycle lasting about 6 seconds. After drifting slightly downward and toward the west-southwest, it disappeared for good about 5 minutes after the observation began. The witness was alone and took neither photos nor video. They compared the light to the navigation lights of an aircraft. GEIPAN rated the case's consistency as medium.

Four hypotheses were examined. A skytracer (a searchlight aimed at the sky) was ruled out because it could not be confirmed that the mid-level clouds, which could have served as a screen, were present. Reflections on ice crystals were also dismissed, since the wind at altitude was too strong for crystals to form and stay in roughly the same spot throughout the observation. Starlink satellite flares did not fit either: the Sun, at -29° below the horizon, was at the limit of the required position and lay to the northwest (about 312°), while the witness was looking west. In addition, the light, estimated at 45° to 60° elevation, was far too high, as the required value is 5° at most. Finally, many aircraft did cross the path the witness described, but the number and rhythm of the appearances far exceeded those passages. The aircraft hypothesis was therefore judged unlikely, though it could not be formally ruled out.

No known phenomenon could be matched to the sighting, which retains a strong residual strangeness, mainly because of its repetitive behavior. GEIPAN classified it as D: unidentified after investigation.