Sighting in Sceaux, November 1, 2021

At about 6:15 pm, a motorist driving on the A86 toward Paris, near exit 27, noticed two very bright white balls in the sky. They were oval, side by side, at the same height, and moving slowly. The sighting was brief: the driver entered a tunnel and did not see them again afterward. Only one account was collected.

The investigation first considered the headlights of two airliners on approach to runway 3 at Orly, a Transavia flight from Porto and an EasyJet flight from Nice. Their elevation, estimated at 2.5°, did not match the 45° reported by the witness. A second hypothesis was then adopted: the landing lights of two military aircraft heading toward the witness. The white color fits such lights. The oval shape is explained by lights merging visually at a distance, while the other lights and the fuselage were drowned out by the glare of the landing lights. The lack of noise is explained by the closed windows, the traffic, and a distance that may have reached several kilometers. The location is near the Orly and Villacoublay airports. The slow movement did not reflect the aircraft's real speed, since they were not seen from the side and the observation was very short.

November 1, 2021 was the first day of the COP26 summit in Glasgow. Two military Falcon 7X aircraft carrying the President of the Republic and the delegation had left Villacoublay that morning and were due back late in the evening. The aircraft seen may have been securing Paris airspace ahead of that return. No tangible data confirmed this, and no trace of the aircraft was found, though their transponders may have been switched off. GEIPAN classified the case as B: probable observation of two military aircraft.