Sighting in Saint-Satur, July 30, 2020

Around 9:15 pm, three friends were walking along the banks of the Loire to enjoy the view of the river when they noticed an object in the sky shaped like a cigar and very bright white. It moved south without making any noise, then passed out of sight. The three friends were left puzzled. Another person in the village, not part of the group, managed to film the phenomenon, and the video was included in the documents sent in by the main witness. Only one witness account was collected.

GEIPAN looked into the possibility of an airliner and confirmed it. Flightradar24 shows that an Airbus A320 flying from Roissy CDG to Monastir (Tunisia) was, at the moment of the sighting, in the right direction at about 8,200 m altitude, at a viewing angle very close to the one the witness described. The witness saw only one object. Its shape matched an aircraft fuselage, white is a common fuselage colour and appears very bright when sunlight reflects off it, and its path was straight at constant speed. At that altitude, stable, fairly dry air that was not cold enough could explain why no condensation trail formed.

The oddities reported also have explanations: the lack of visible wings comes from the viewing angle, distance, atmospheric scattering and reflectivity, which is greater on the fuselage; the "crab-like" movement is probably a perspective effect, absent from the video; the final "luminous balls" were probably brief reflections of the sun on the rows of windows; and the silence is explained by the great distance. The case is classified A: observation of an aircraft.