Sighting in Thun-Saint-Amand, December 3, 2016

At around 4:45 p.m., two witnesses at home noticed a number of luminous rectangles in the sky, which puzzled them. Through binoculars, they described grey-green, very slender saucer-shaped objects topped with a paler dome. They then described three oval objects with small dark grey wings, surrounded by a crackling orange light, moving from the south-west toward the north-east; a dull noise was heard. One of the witnesses also saw a greyish sphere. The observation ended at about 5:10 p.m., and three photographs were taken with a tablet. GEIPAN received all the testimonies in 2017.

The investigation concluded that this was very probably a misidentification of several aircraft seen at sunset. The description is entirely typical of this kind of situation. The photographs could be compared in detail with air traffic records, leaving no doubt about what the "luminous rectangles" or "capsules" were. The final phase is less certain: it was not photographed, and military air traffic records could not be consulted because the report came too late. Even so, the description is again typical of a mistaken identification of aircraft. Only the sphere described by one witness remains unexplained, and its existence is doubtful: the other witness did not see it although they were watching together, and it does not appear in the photos, contrary to what was claimed. If it had been real, there would be no reason for it to fade in the pictures. The case was classified A: misidentification of various aircraft at sunset.