Sighting in Vergèze, August 21, 2017

On the evening of 21 August 2017, and again on several evenings in a row, a witness noticed a white point of light crossing the sky, its brightness changing as it went. The object always followed the same general path, though the path shifted slightly from one evening to the next. The witness made videos of the phenomenon. The case was judged to have low strangeness and good consistency: there was only one witness account, but it was precise and backed by the videos.

The witness's description strongly suggested a satellite spinning rapidly on itself, which the videos confirmed. The investigation looked for a satellite meeting several criteria: a pass directly overhead on 21 August 2017, travelling from northwest to southeast, to the left of the star Altair, between 9:10 and 9:25 pm, then passes on the following evenings at the same time on a similar track that moved gradually westward. Only one satellite fit: Telkom 3, an Indonesian satellite whose launch aboard a Russian rocket failed in 2012, and which is known for fairly bright, irregular flashes.

GEIPAN therefore classified the case A: a misidentification of the Telkom 3 satellite.