Sighting in Saintes, July 13, 2016

At about 11:30 p.m., a witness saw a very bright white light hanging motionless in the southwest of a clear night sky. It stayed visible for roughly 30 seconds and then went out. The witness had the impression that it had left at tremendous speed. Only one account was collected, and it came from the same person as in an earlier case from the same town, in which Jupiter, close to the Moon, had been mistaken for something else.

The investigation concluded that this was another misidentification of a celestial body, either Mars or Saturn, both located just to the left of the Moon. That evening all three objects were low in the sky. According to the witness's drawing, the layout of the place would have allowed only one of the three to be seen in the direction indicated, the other two being hidden by a tree to the right of the object and by a building to the left. Had the Moon been visible, it would most likely have been reported as a first quarter. The light going out after 30 seconds may have been caused by a cloud passing in front of it, and the impression of enormous speed stemmed from the idea of an object that switches off because it suddenly moves away. GEIPAN therefore classified the case as A: astronomical observation.