Sighting in Villers-sous-Saint-Leu, April 2, 2012

A witness reported seeing a bright point of light in the sky on several successive evenings in April 2012. On 2 April, they looked at it first with the naked eye, then through binoculars. They described a very bright object that sank slowly toward the horizon and vanished at around 12:30 a.m. They also reported seeing shapes on the object.

According to GEIPAN, the slow descent matches that of a celestial body setting, like the Sun. At that time, Venus was visible in the evening sky and was especially bright (magnitude -5.2). The shapes described were probably an over-interpretation of flaws in eyesight or optics, which become noticeable when a very bright point is watched at night. The case was classified A: the witness had seen the planet Venus, which was particularly brilliant on those nights.