Villers-sous-Saint-Leu 2012, observation of very bright Venus

Summary

A French citizen reported a series of observations of a bright point in the sky in April 2012. On April 2, the witness first saw it with the naked eye and then with binoculars. For several consecutive nights, he observed a very bright object slowly descending toward the horizon, disappearing around 00:30. The pace of this movement clearly resembled that of a celestial body, like the Sun. At that time, Venus was particularly visible in the night sky, with a magnitude of -5.2. The shapes described by the witness were likely exaggerated interpretations of visual or optical flaws caused by observing a very bright point in the dark. The GEIPAN classified this case as "A", attributing it to an observation of particularly bright Venus.