VILLARS-LES-DOMBES (01) 20.10.2024

On 20 October 2024 at about 20:15, a witness at home in Villars-les-Dombes (01) was watching the sky to follow comet Tsuchinshan-ATLAS when he saw a dark shape made up of several identical, blurred, faintly luminous points. Resembling a patch of “hazy starry sky,” it moved silently on a straight, steady, regular path from north-northwest to south-southeast. A monocular revealed no additional detail. After about 30 seconds, it disappeared behind a neighboring roof. Substantiation was moderate to weak: 1 witness and no photographs or video. GEIPAN defines this as the amount of reliable, objectively established information collected for an account. Investigators considered LED balloons, a Starlink-type satellite formation and a flock of birds. Starlink was quickly ruled out because the trajectories of potentially visible satellites did not match. Illuminated balloons were rejected because winds both near the ground and aloft differed substantially from the reported path. Birds with pale undersides reflecting urban lighting were the strongest explanation: - Angular-distance calculations showed that, at a cruising speed of 20 km/h, their inferred distance would prevent recognition of their shapes or wingbeats. - Significant light pollution along the route could reflect diffusely from pale plumage, producing faint, hazy points. - Steady, straight movement matched migrating birds or birds returning to roost. - The area had a particularly dense bird population, including several white-plumaged species active at dusk on their way to safe roosts. - The direction led directly toward a major bird park, described in the source as housing more than 3,000 birds of 600 species. Although the evidence was moderate to weak, particularly because of imprecise timing, the physical and environmental matches sufficiently supported the explanation. GEIPAN classified the case B: a high probability of birds in transit flight.