UFO sighting in France

Summary

On September 23, 2013, a driver in the Manche region of France noticed two bright points in the sky. One of them appeared to move in a straight line toward the northwest at a constant speed. The witness clearly identified it as an airplane with its condensation trail and stopped several times to photograph the object. The high-quality images clearly show a distant airplane contrail moving away from the observer. When zooming in, the bright point appears flame-like, a typical perspective of a contrail illuminated by the setting sun. Although FlightRadar24 shows possible airplanes in the area, the witness's direction estimate is not precise enough to confirm they were responsible. The GEIPAN classified this case as "B", indicating a very likely observation of airplane contrails under the sunset light. This case is an example of how optical illusions can appear unusual but are explainable with conventional phenomena.