Sighting in Salies-de-Béarn, September 22, 2013

At about 7:45 on a Sunday morning, a witness was walking to their workplace when something in the sky caught their attention: a very thin, elongated, cylinder-like shape moving faster than an aircraft they had noticed earlier. The object then disappeared toward the southwest.

GEIPAN's investigation compared the object's altitude and azimuth with those of the aircraft flying in the area at that time, and they matched. Its appearance was also consistent with an aircraft lit by the rising sun. GEIPAN concluded that it was probably an airliner flying at medium altitude and illuminated by the sunrise. The account was consistent and fairly precise, but it came from a single witness and no photo was available. The sighting was only slightly strange, since it was easily explained by these particular conditions. The case was classified B: the account was not detailed enough to identify the exact aircraft, as several planes were flying in the area at that hour.