ARGOL (29) 29.10.2025

On Wednesday 29 October 2025 at 19:27, a witness outdoors looking south to southwest saw a steady white light suddenly appear to the west from behind an oak's foliage. It did not flash and was comparable in brightness to Venus or an aircraft. The witness described an effect like reflected moonlight that seemed to reveal a larger dark-grey-to-black rectangle, then tried to film the scene. GEIPAN judged the evidential support good: the main witness was precise and supplied sketches showing the phenomenon from several angles. The supplied video could not be technically analysed. GEIPAN defines evidential support as the amount of information collected for an account that is considered reliable and objectively established. The main hypothesis was residual-fuel venting from the second stage of a Falcon 9 launched that day. The source gives a Florida launch at 16:35 UTC, 17:35 French civil time, carrying 29 Starlink satellites into a 53°-inclination orbit. Satellite deployment occurred approximately 55 minutes later, at about 17:30 UTC, after which the second stage began its second orbit. The Argol sighting occurred at approximately 18:27 UTC. The source calls this 1 hour 55 minutes after launch, although its listed times differ by 1 hour 52 minutes. GEIPAN considered the timing consistent with routine passivation, the emptying of residual fuel. It explained that such venting creates bright high-altitude plumes visible over large distances when the orbiting object is sunlit while the ground is in twilight, as it judged the conditions to have been that evening. The same phenomenon was reported in Ireland between 18:25 and 18:35 UTC as a bright point with a diffuse halo, moving slowly west to east without sound. A simultaneous report also came from Finistère at a location equidistant from Sizun and Landerneau, about 30 km from Argol. From Argol, the light appeared westward and receded east-southeastward. GEIPAN found this consistent with an object in a 53° orbit passing north of the witness: its generally west-to-east motion would project as a northwest-to-southeast arc across the Breton sky. Ireland, closer to the ground track, would see west-to-east movement, consistent with those reports. GEIPAN considered the dark rectangle accompanying a steady bright point compatible with perceptual effects during unusual night-time light observations. It described reports of apparently structured Falcon 9 objects at twilight as extremely frequent and documented. The witness's sketches matched those reports, but his computer reconstruction accentuated the shapes and their apparent strangeness. GEIPAN took agreement to the minute with nearby reports under 50 km away and distant reports over 500 km away, with a shared path and similar azimuths, as evidence of an orbital phenomenon. Although the witness perceived strong strangeness, GEIPAN found little remaining after comparison with this hypothesis. It classified the case A: fuel venting from a stage of SpaceX Falcon 9, Starlink 10-37, launched from SLC-40 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station on 29 October 2025.