Sighting in Saint-Germain-en-Laye, May 30, 2020

The witness was at home when, ten to twenty minutes after the Crew Dragon capsule lifted off, they saw an object pass at high speed, resembling an aircraft or a rocket, with a large flame at the rear. The pass lasted one minute at most. The witness gave a west-southwest direction in the questionnaire and west to east in a later email. They thought they had seen the Crew Dragon capsule. They made a video in which the Moon appears above the object.

The Falcon 9 launch had taken place that same evening from Cape Canaveral. The CNES orbitography service confirmed that the capsule and the launcher body were visible from France, with the setting sun making observation possible. The capsule passed north of the observation site, so it could not have been the object seen. The second stage, however, could have passed to the south under some hypotheses, and GEIPAN first adopted that explanation.

A reader then suggested an airliner, and GEIPAN reopened the analysis. The object's shape, the double blinking visible on the enlarged video, trails consistent with jet engines, and the presence of a Boeing 777 in the right direction all support the aircraft explanation. That aircraft's timing was somewhat later than the witness's estimate, a gap judged compatible with an imprecise recollection. A speed calculation based on the time the object took to cross the Moon (about 0.5 seconds for 0.5°) gives roughly 630 km/h for an aircraft at 10 km altitude, which is consistent. For a launcher stage at 60-70 km, the speed obtained would be too low for a space object. GEIPAN therefore revised its opinion: the object was very probably the Boeing 777 on flight AZ209, and the case was classified A.