[A86] DE SCEAUX (92) VERS PARIS (75) 01.11.2021

On Monday 1 November 2021 at about 18:15, a woman driving towards Paris on the A86 near exit 27 saw 2 intensely bright white oval lights side by side, at the same height, moving slowly across the sky. The sighting was brief because she entered a tunnel and could not find them afterwards. Only 1 account was collected. GEIPAN first considered the landing lights of 2 airliners approaching Orly runway 3 (see the investigation report). Transavia flight TO3451/TVF34JK from Porto and easyJet flight U24066/EJU641M from Nice were plausible candidates, but their estimated elevation of 2.5° did not match the witness's 45°. The second hypothesis was 2 military aircraft briefly seen approaching the witness, with their landing lights visible. GEIPAN cited several supporting features. The white colour matched landing lights. At a distance, the lights could visually merge into ovals, with the outermost 2 lights on the wings. The brightness could overwhelm the fuselage, navigation lights and anticollision lights; an unknown but possibly substantial distance could further hide those details. Silence was unsurprising inside a closed-window car in A86 traffic, particularly if the aircraft were several kilometres away. The sighting was near Orly and Villacoublay airports. Slow apparent motion did not indicate actual speed because the aircraft were approaching rather than crossing the viewing direction, and observation ended quickly at the tunnel. The source describes 1 November 2021 as the first day of the COP26 climate meeting in Glasgow, attended by numerous heads of state and government. Two military Falcon 7X aircraft carrying the French President and delegation left Villacoublay that morning for Glasgow and were due back late that evening. GEIPAN proposed that the observed aircraft might have been securing Paris airspace before their return, but found no tangible evidence confirming this. No tracks of the suspected aircraft were found either. It suggested that transponders might have been switched off for that particular security operation. GEIPAN classified the case B: probable observation of 2 military aircraft.