Throughout the sighting, the pilots were able to capture several photographs and films of the object, which also show a changing arrangement of smaller lights around a large main object, which is not characteristic of a conventional aircraft.
One of the pilots described the events as follows:
"Suddenly, a bright light appeared in front of us. It was too bright for it to be a star and it was initially stationary above the horizon. Me and my colleague (senior first officer) stared at it for a while and were unsure what it was. It looked like a single bright light surrounded by small lights. It was not an airplane, as these are usually very easy to identify by position lights, flashing lights, etc. In addition, this thing was much too bright.
After some time, the light suddenly began to move. I can't remember exactly the time span in between, it was maybe 15-20 minutes. Then the light flew from the front past our right side and a little above our machine. While it was doing that, it was higher than us (well over 40,000 feet [about 12 km]) and was also moving faster than us. The most amazing moment was when it flew past us. None of us could see a structure. It was just like a group of bright lights, with no connecting structure. That was really the strangest thing we both have ever observed.
I myself have been flying passenger aircraft for 15 years and my colleague for about 10 years. We've seen hundreds of shooting stars, satellites, airplanes, and other well-known objects, but nothing like this thing."
Based on his image analyses, Buettner assumes that the object passed the machine "quite close". Flight databases such as
FlightRadar24.com also ruled out the possibility that other conventional aircraft, helicopters or registered drones were in the vicinity or on a corresponding course at the time of the flyby, which could explain the phenomenon.
