Sighting in Troyes, October 2, 2016

At about 21:57 one evening, the witness was on the fourth floor of their apartment when their attention was caught by seven or eight white lights, like those on aircraft, moving across the sky. One of the lights separated from the rest, and together they formed a tight triangle. The sighting lasted around ten seconds and was completely silent. The witness put the lights at an elevation of 15 to 30°. Only one account was collected.

The investigation concluded that this was very probably a Falcon jet flying at a relatively low altitude of 4,900 m. A reconstruction of the flight path matches exactly for the time (the record is in UT, equal to 21:59 local time) and for the direction. The aircraft passed as close as 3,800 m to the witness, at a real elevation of 52°, a gap considered normal for an estimate made without ground references. At that distance the 20 m aircraft spanned about 0.19°, or 40% of the Moon's apparent size, and the naked eye can make out its windows. The witness, used to seeing aircraft flying higher, normally sees only one to three lights on them. The witness confirmed this angular order of magnitude. The single light above the horizontal line is harder to explain: it may be extra lighting, common on non-commercial jets, or an error of perception or memory. The silence is explained by a 15 to 20 km/h south-westerly wind blowing against sound coming from the north-east, even with the window open, and by attention being absorbed by the visual impression. The aircraft noise heard a few minutes later was probably another plane passing to the west, its sound carried by the wind. The witness also did not mention the Falcon, even though it passed through their field of view at that very moment, which supports the hypothesis. GEIPAN classified the case as A: aircraft observation.