ORLEANS (45) 01.11.2007

On 1 November 2007 between 11:15 and 11:30, a car passenger travelling from Saint-Sauveur-sur-École (77) to Tours (37) along national road 152, now departmental road 1152, saw an object in the sky near Orléans (45). It initially resembled a hang-glider but changed shape and entered a nearby cloud, where it disappeared. It rotated and did not appear attached to a cable. The witness took 5 digital photographs. The driver saw nothing. A girl in the back saw the object but was not asked to give an account. The witness and his father, a former pilot, could not explain it. No other UAP accounts were collected. The witness reported it at a Gendarmerie station but did not complete the GEIPAN questionnaire. The gendarmes analysed the photographs and noted varying shapes, including a dome and parallelogram; a dark or black object with metallic-looking reflections on its upper part in some images; and a cumulonimbus into which the witness said it entered. No aircraft or paraglider was found on the ground, and no accident was reported. Airbase 123 at Brecy–Orléans reported no corresponding flight activity in that time and location. Orléans’s departmental weather service stated that no meteorological airborne equipment appeared to have been deployed in the preceding days. GEIPAN considered a piloted object. Entry into cumulonimbus argues against any civilian aircraft, including a hang-glider or light transport. The source explains that electrical activity, wind shear and loss of visibility cause aircraft to avoid these clouds; it further argues that an aircraft entering this cloud would have been forced down by downdrafts, yet nothing was reported on the ground. The airbase’s response also argues against a military aircraft. The piloted-object hypothesis was therefore rejected. The preferred unpiloted-object explanation is a tethered balloon or helikite, a hybrid kite and tethered balloon. Such devices have scientific, photographic, film-production and communications uses, among others. Their changing views can produce the hang-glider, dome and parallelogram shapes described by the witness and gendarmes, as illustrated by Helikites and the video “Helikites vs Other Aerostats Video” from 2:10. GEIPAN offers several explanations for the apparent disappearance into the cloud: destruction; passage behind the cloud, with the witness perceiving the object and cloud as moving in the same plane; or retrieval to the ground by its tether, the movement hidden by the cloud. Its presence at 2,000 m over an urban area might reflect a specially authorised event, such as festivities, or a broken tether allowing it to leave its original operating area. GEIPAN classifies the case B: tethered balloon or helikite, a tethered balloon–kite hybrid.