Sighting in Vélizy-Villacoublay, November 3, 1953

In the early evening, the press reported several accounts of a white, luminous sphere in the sky. It stayed motionless in the northeast, where the sky was lightly clouded. The time given was 19:14 UT, which corresponds to 8:14 p.m. local time.

An air traffic controller on duty in the tower wrote down the sighting in the tower's service log that same day. On 20 November 1953 the controller made a formal statement, adding that two other military personnel had seen the same thing.

The investigation relied on a sky chart. It showed that, at the time of the sighting, the planet Jupiter was in the northeast, very bright (magnitude -2.22), at an elevation of 3.6° above the horizon. GEIPAN concluded that the witnesses had mistaken Jupiter for something else, an astronomical misidentification, and classified the case as A.