LOCMINE (56) 22.09.2013

On Sunday 22 September 2013 at 18:45, several car occupants in Locminé (56) saw an unexplained phenomenon. The reporting witness described a silver sphere becoming a bright white elongated form, apparently stationary, then splitting in two and disappearing instantly. Radar data show the high-altitude aircraft he described as a black track, and another aircraft at low altitude, hence without a contrail according to the source, receding from him as a red track. The latter appeared still because it moved almost directly away along his line of sight. When it changed direction at the time given as 18:50, the reflection changed and vanished, creating the impression that the object itself disappeared. The source refers to a left turn between 18:48 and 18:51 at the diagram's upper right and notes that times along the aircraft tracks are in Universal Time. The witness's initial thought, sunlight reflecting off an aircraft, proved to be the explanation. GEIPAN classifies the case A: fully explained by sunlight reflected from an aircraft.