Sighting in San-Martino-di-Lota, August 15, 2017

From home, the witness saw brief, instantaneous flashes of white light in the sky between about 9:10 and 9:20 pm. Two simultaneous flashes first appeared to the left of their terrace, in the north-east (azimuth 25°, about 20° above the horizon). After disappearing, they reappeared in the same way in the east, at an azimuth of 90°. The witness then saw flashes appear and vanish four more times at different places in the sky. The weather was fine and the sky clear, with a heat haze partly hiding the Italian islands of Capraia and Elba. The weather report confirmed this: 21°C around 9:00 pm and visibility of 40 km.

The witness compiled several luminous phenomena in a video. When they met the investigator, they were mixing up their observations of 15 August with those of 9 and 14 October 2017, and then confirmed that only the 15 August one should be considered. They are a former scientist, closely interested in what happens in the Corsican sky, and had been hoping to make an observation themselves.

The inquiries turned up nothing: neither the air transport gendarmerie at Bastia-Poretta airport nor two local gendarmeries had received any report, no press article appeared, and the control tower supplied neither schedules nor radar data. Searches for Iridium flashes and the ISS were negative. However, fireworks are customarily launched in Corsica on the evening of 15 August. The Miomo beach display took place at 9:30 pm, preceded by a test of a few rockets at 9:15 pm, and the Bastia display was at 10:00 pm. Lasers from nightclubs or restaurants were also possible, though unconfirmed. Many boats were at sea, and the site offers a view of many lights: the Italian coast, the airport on Elba, helicopters and busy air corridors.

The witness did see lights, but there was only one account and too little information to choose between the hypotheses, although fireworks were quite plausible. GEIPAN classified the case as C because of the lack of usable data.