Sighting in Seilhac, September 4, 2021

At around 11:06 pm, the witness was looking at the Big Dipper from their bathroom window, as they did every evening before bed. The constellation was just above their garage. As soon as they opened the window, their eye was drawn to a very bright, "cigar"-shaped object lying horizontally. It was white, with a faint red flash in the middle. The witness first thought it was an aircraft and kept watching. They soon noticed that the object stayed still, without moving, for what they called "a good minute". It then began to move very, very slowly until it disappeared behind a tree. The witness put the total duration at about 1 minute 30 seconds.

The witness often watched the stars in the evening, shooting stars in particular, and said they could tell aircraft, satellites and fireballs apart. They admitted feeling joyful at having seen this "luminous cigar", which in their view might have been a UFO.

The GEIPAN investigation established that it was a Transavia airliner, flight TO4159 from Oran to Paris. At the time given, the plane was exactly at the reported position, and radar maps of aircraft trajectories confirmed it. Its great distance matched the low angular height of the object in the sky. At that distance and so close to the horizon, a plane appears motionless because of perspective, which explains the apparent stillness and the strangeness the witness felt. The account came from a single witness with no photo, but it was fairly complete and consistent. The case was classified A.