Sighting in Tournon-Saint-Pierre, March 23, 2020

From the yard of their home at 11:08 pm, the witness noticed a motionless light in the sky toward the south-southwest. They filmed it with a camcorder and later sent the GEIPAN three frames taken from the video, which showed the shape of the phenomenon. This was the only account collected.

Using a street-level photo the witness supplied to show where the light was, together with Google Earth, investigators estimated its position at roughly 240° azimuth and about 30° above the horizon. A simulation in Stellarium showed that at that time the star Procyon lay within a few degrees of that position. Procyon is among the brightest stars in the sky, and the color and brightness the witness described fit it well.

The strangeness came mainly from the camcorder images. With this kind of equipment, a star or planet cannot be enlarged: the lens cannot focus on an object so distant, and zooming in on a point of light creates optical and electronic artifacts. The various colors seen are chromatic aberrations caused by the same lack of focus. The GEIPAN classified the case as A, a definite observation of Procyon.