Sighting in Saint-Pol-sur-Ternoise, July 20, 2010

Between 12:30 and 5:00 in the morning, three people, all amateur astronomers, noticed a luminous phenomenon with a trail in a starry sky. It appeared to move silently from west to east along a straight path. The witnesses took precise measurements and a photograph.

GEIPAN rated the case as moderately strange but very consistent. The investigation concluded that it was probably a misidentification of the beam of a fixed floodlight on the ground. Several possible sources of such a beam stood near the observation site, including buildings and a summer commercial event, and the sky was hazy at altitude. The witnesses' eyesight was not in question; what weighed in was their interpretation, shaped by surprise, tiredness and an initial reading of the phenomenon as a fragmenting comet. The case was classified B, probably identified.