PAYNS (10) 19.05.2012

On 19 May 2012 at 23:20, several members of a family in Payns saw lights associated with shapes that frightened them passing silently over their property. The narrative describes hundreds of lights, while the summary says more than 100. A local gendarmerie investigation identified a release of 100 Chinese sky lanterns at a wedding a few hundred metres away. GEIPAN checked compatibility with the local wind and confirmed the gendarmerie’s conclusions. The case is classified A: a fully identified sky-lantern release. GEIPAN considers that surprise and fear strongly influenced the witnesses’ interpretation of this large-scale display.