Venus mistaken for a UFO in the cloudy skies of Marne

Summary

On 26 September 2007, two witnesses in Marne observed a bright oval shape apparently hovering at about one hundred metres, facing southeast. They watched it from 7:30 a.m. until 11:00 a.m., when it disappeared after slowly rising. One witness saw it again the next day.

The investigation identified the object as Venus, which at the time had a magnitude of –4.31, making it clearly visible even through cloud cover. This was corroborated by astronomical data published in Sciences et Vie that September. The case shows how bright celestial bodies can be mistaken for unidentified phenomena, especially under unusual atmospheric conditions.