RUFFEC (16) 13.09.2022

On 13 September 2022 at about 21:00, a witness in his garden in Ruffec (16) saw a white point of light to the west repeatedly moving along an arc in the same part of the sky. Each appearance alternated with a period of invisibility, with a cycle of about 6 seconds. After a slight downward and west-southwest movement, it disappeared for good after about 5 minutes. The case has moderate evidential strength*, with a single witness and no photograph or video. *Under GEIPAN's criteria, evidential strength is the amount of information collected for an account that is considered reliable and objectively substantiated. Four hypotheses were explored (see investigation report): aircraft; sunlight flares from Starlink satellites; skytracer light displays from ground searchlights; and reflections from suspended atmospheric ice crystals. The last two were quickly rejected. Mid-level cloud capable of supporting a skytracer projection could not be definitively confirmed. For ice crystals, upper-level winds were considered too strong for formation and for remaining roughly in one place throughout the sighting. The description suggests aircraft because the witness likened the UAP to aircraft position lights. Reconstructed air traffic showed many planes along the reported path, but the number and frequency of appearances greatly exceeded the aircraft passages. Mistaking successive aircraft for one rotating UAP was therefore considered unlikely, although it could not be definitively checked. For Starlink flares, the appearance resembles sunlight reflections, but the Sun was around 29° below the horizon, at the edge of the source's stated required range of −30° to −45°, and at a northwest azimuth of approximately 312°, while the observation was westward. More decisively, the reported elevation of 45–60° was much higher than the required few degrees, at most 5°. The investigation therefore judged this hypothesis incompatible with the viewing conditions. No known phenomenon could be matched to the UAP. It retained fairly high residual strangeness, mainly because of its repetitive behavior. GEIPAN classifies the case D: phenomenon unidentified after investigation.