CHATILLON (92) 17.07.2022

During the night of 16–17 July 2022, a resident of Châtillon (92), T1, and her son, T2, were observing the sky from home when she saw a bright sphere above La Défense, apparently at very high altitude. It was very luminous, with an apparent size she considered disproportionate to its altitude, and did not flash. It crossed the sky quickly and soon left her field of view. Only 1 account was collected. GEIPAN finds low strangeness and a very good amount of reliable, objectively supported information: 2 witnesses and a video. It identifies a passage of the International Space Station (ISS). This evidential assessment concerns the quantity of such information collected for an account. The investigation established that the ISS crossed the sky at the reported time on a trajectory and at an angular elevation very consistent with the account; see the report. GEIPAN explains that the perceived ball shape arose from interpreting a zoomed image extracted from the video. At times it shows 2 concentric circles, characteristic of defocus. The handheld phone, recording at night, could not focus on the phenomenon. Other sequences show a point-like UAP, consistent with a distant light source. The case is classified A: observation of an ISS passage.