VERNOIL-LE-FOURRIER (49) 07.04.2026

At 22:14 on 7 April 2026, a witness at home in Vernoil-le-Fourrier (49) saw a faint white light cross a clear night sky. It looked like an elongated segment, travelling straight at constant speed without flashing from Hercules towards Leo. Only 1 account was collected. GEIPAN assessed the case as moderately strange with very good evidential support from a complete account and usable photographs and videos. It defines evidential strength as the quantity of reliable, objectively supported information collected for an account. The investigation identified flares from Qianfan SpaceSail satellites 109–126; see the report. The French summary instead gives 109–116 while describing all or some of 18 satellites, a numbering discrepancy left unresolved in the source. According to GEIPAN, the satellites had been launched less than 7 hours earlier by a Chinese Long March 8 rocket into a near-polar orbit. Sunlight reflected from their structures while the observer was in darkness. They were in an intermediate orbit before moving to their final positions in the Qianfan SpaceSail satellite-internet megaconstellation. Many European reports corroborated the account and its overall appearance, including GEIPAN's BURGNAC (87), 7 April 2026 case. Orbital parameters obtained during the investigation confirmed that the group was visible from the witness's position along the described trajectory. GEIPAN classified the case A: satellite flares in an intermediate orbit before deployment within Qianfan SpaceSail.