Sighting in Sedan, April 25, 2008

At around 8:30 pm, a witness and their spouse were at home when they noticed a light source resembling a headlight passing over the hill facing their terrace. It then vanished behind that hill.

The investigation put forward two possible explanations. The first is an aircraft seen head-on: its powerful landing light, viewed from roughly 10 km away, would have dazzled the witnesses and kept them from seeing the plane itself. Descending, the aircraft would have gone behind the hill while turning toward the west, and its beam would then have disappeared from the observers' view. The airport's light traffic at that hour could explain why they were surprised. The second possibility is a flash from an Iridium satellite, which could have produced the same point of light disappearing behind the hill.

GEIPAN could not choose between the two hypotheses because there was not enough information. The case, only mildly strange, was classified C.