TROUVILLE-SUR-MER (14) 14.03.2013

At 19:16 on 14 March 2013, a witness in Trouville-sur-Mer (14) noticed a yellow-orange luminous phenomenon and filmed it for a few seconds. He briefly turned away; it had disappeared when he looked back at the sky. GEIPAN's analysis of photographs and the video viewed online left little doubt about its origin. It resembled a phenomenon seen by many witnesses in Martinique on 15 February; see Sainte-Luce (972), 15 February 2013. GEIPAN explains that aircraft contrails at sunset or sunrise are often orange and very bright in sunlight, contrasting with the dim twilight sky. Particular weather conditions can make them spectacular. Here the aircraft approached the witness from the northwest horizon, making its contrail point towards the horizon and appear vertical. The trail was actually parallel to Earth's surface, but looked vertical when viewed from below at a shallow angle. The object appeared almost stationary because it was approaching from far away, at least 30 km. There was also no fixed sky reference against which to judge its motion accurately. As the aircraft continued southeast into Earth's shadow, its contrail would cease to be sunlit, become dimmer than the blue-white sky and vanish from view. GEIPAN notes that the witness could occasionally see the same display again, given clear skies and the necessary humidity and temperature at aircraft altitude. Many airliners fly in that direction on routes such as London–Barcelona and London–Toulouse, and identifying the particular aircraft would add little. GEIPAN classified the case A: an aircraft contrail illuminated by the setting Sun.