Chaufondos-sur-Layón 2014, a false sun and lens flares

Summary

A witness in Maine-et-Loire observed what appeared to be a second sun with a colorful halo. Noticing it, she stopped her car to photograph the phenomenon with her smartphone. In person, she saw a parhelion, an optical phenomenon caused by the refraction of sunlight through ice crystals. However, in the photos, cylindrical bright shapes appeared around the sun, which turned out to be internal lens reflections known as flares. These reflections are symmetrical relative to the sun and depend on the framing of the shot. The case was classified as "A" by GEIPAN, as it involved both a real optical observation and a known photographic effect.