MAINCY (77) 10.12.2013

On 10 December 2013 between 22:06 and 22:13, a driver saw 3 large orange lights forming a triangle above a small wood, with an apparent dark mass between them. The lights went out one after another, and he said the UFO also diminished. He drew another female driver's attention to the sighting, but only 1 account was collected. GEIPAN finds that orange lights visible for several minutes strongly suggest sky lanterns. It interprets the apparent dark object between them as a common visual-perception illusion associated with Gestalt principles. The fact that the dark shape seemed to disappear as the lights extinguished supports this interpretation. GEIPAN contacted the gendarmerie, town hall and Château de Vaux-le-Vicomte to try to identify a lantern release, but no local celebration was recorded that evening. The lights were above a large private park; GEIPAN did not seek its owners. The release would, however, have needed to occur farther east. A very light easterly wind, documented in Météociel records, was behind the witness, so the nearly stationary objects would have been moving slowly away. Although weekday lantern releases are relatively uncommon and the person responsible was not identified, GEIPAN finds the accounts consistent with this hypothesis. It classifies the case B: probable observation of sky lanterns. The witness did not accept this explanation.