ALPES-DE-HAUTE-PROVENCE (04) 28.07.2008

On 28 July 2008 at about 20:30, a witness walking his dog saw a large, elongated orange cloud with a black outline above his village tennis-court fence to the north-northwest. It was completely stationary and silent. A blue flame-like feature appeared above it; the cloud then slowly approached, passed between the community hall and the witness, headed toward a field and changed into an electric-looking ball. He likened it to a “giant sea urchin” with electrical spikes all around, gliding through the air. No particular sound was heard. The UAP moved toward a hill. Realizing he could photograph it, the witness ran home but did not immediately find his phone and decided to return before it disappeared. Back at the scene, he saw the sphere still above the hill, with 2 nearby black objects moving away from it. After 2–3 seconds, the sphere descended behind the hill and vanished. Returning later that evening, he smelled a strong odor “like burned electrical circuits.” In the following days, he reported irritated eyes, a sensation of heat and insomnia, and remained shocked and stressed. GEIPAN collected no other account. The several phases of this very close luminous phenomenon were highly unusual. Nothing gave grounds to doubt the witness's sincerity or the reliability of his account. He described a gas-like phenomenon changing shape and appearance. In a telephone interview, he clarified that he never found his phone that evening, and that his eyes tingled the same night, with the heat sensation beginning 2 days later. GEIPAN experts reviewed the atypical account in 2012 without proposing an explanation. Because parts resembled ball lightning, it was presented at a scientific ball-lightning symposium in 2015. Some scientists recognized clear characteristics of that phenomenon; the source also considered the physiological effects supportive. Ball lightning matched the perceived strangeness, but the 10-minute duration was very long for it. No thunderstorm activity could be correlated with the event, so GEIPAN lacked concrete support for that explanation. Strangeness was high but substantiation moderate: 1 witness, no photograph and no precise UAP position. The case was classified C for insufficient reliable information.