METZ (57) 30.08.2025

On 30 August 2025 at about 21:30, witness T1 and her family were beside the lake in Metz (57) for the Mirabelle Festival fireworks. Looking north, slightly east of Ursa Major, she saw more than 15 white satellite-like points moving west to east on parallel paths without forming a line. They gradually faded over about 15 seconds, with no flashes, trails or sound. At about 22:00, the family saw a second group: about 7 lights appeared overhead and moved rapidly southward on apparently independent paths with no fixed formation. They disappeared after about 20 seconds. The entire family confirmed both phenomena, but only T1 reported to GEIPAN, and there were no photographs or video. Substantiation was therefore moderate. GEIPAN defines this as the amount of reliable, objectively established information collected for an account. T1's sense of strangeness arose mainly from the spectacle of so many lights in clusters. Multiple Starlink satellites were the only hypothesis explored. Supporting features included their white, point-like appearance, straight paths, one group's fading “like satellites no longer illuminated by the Sun,” and 3 recent launches, on 27, 28 and 30 August, totaling 80 satellites (Appendix 1). The elapsed time since launch could explain why the satellites had spread from lines into clusters. The 27 and 28 August launches were from Florida into eastward, nonpolar orbits, producing west-to-east paths as viewed from mainland France. The 30 August launch occurred at 13:59 French local time from Vandenberg, California, into a polar orbit that could produce a north-to-south pass over France. Intrigued by the first large group, probably from the first 2 launches, the witnesses paid more attention to the sky and happened to see another group about 30 minutes later. These were probably from the 30 August launch: closer together but already dispersed enough to lose the familiar line formation. T1 described them as “not at all aligned as Starlink satellites are.” GEIPAN classified the case B as probable Starlink satellites in transfer orbits toward the operational network.