[AERO] GAUJAN (32) 26.11.2024

Early on 26 November 2024, while flying over Gaujan (32) from Lourdes (65) to Toulouse (31), a helicopter pilot, T1, and flight assistant, T2, saw 2–3 lights moving erratically, appearing and disappearing without a clear pattern. After 5 minutes, T2 checked Flightradar and ADS-B, finding no aircraft, and Blagnac air traffic control confirmed no matching radar return. Near Toulouse, a doctor and nurse aboard, T3 and T4, also saw the lights after the crew pointed them out. GEIPAN finds low strangeness and good evidential substance*: multiple observers, one account, a photograph and video. It identifies operational Starlink satellite flashes, or cluster flares (see report and GEIPAN note “Nouveau phénomène expliqué : les flashs de satellites Starlink”). Description and appearance fit. Stellarium reconstruction places the UAP in the favourable flare region, about 10° high vertically above the Sun’s direction, with the Sun 38° below the horizon. Satellite reconstruction confirms numerous Starlinks there. The source calls this GEIPAN’s first investigated Starlink-flare case observed both in the air and from the ground since the phenomenon was identified following worldwide airline-pilot reports, although the narrative here details only airborne witnesses. Classification A: flashes from Starlink satellites distributed through the megaconstellation. *Evidential substance is information collected for an account considered reliable and objectively substantiated.