MASSY (91) 04.11.2013

A witness in Massy on 4 November 2013 observed an intense, elongated light in the sky. It was pale and slightly orange, resembling sunset reflected from an aircraft fuselage, and remained visible for a long time. GEIPAN explains that an orange luminous shape due west shortly after sunset strongly suggests an object at altitude illuminated by the setting Sun. Venus lay farther south than the direction reported and should have appeared round and white, rather than elongated and orange. A distant aircraft contrail, 40–80 km away, could have produced this appearance: the suggested aircraft would have been flying south to north at 12,000 m, 50 km from Paris. At such distances, contrails appear very small and almost stationary. They become invisible as the Sun moves farther below the horizon. The source refers readers to “Strange aircraft contrails.” GEIPAN classifies the case B: probable observation of an aircraft contrail.