AIX-EN-PROVENCE (13) 05.07.2014

On 5 July 2014 at 22:10 in Aix-en-Provence (13), a witness looking from a window saw a silent orange point move away, stop, then disappear at great speed. An orange ball on a Saturday evening moving with the light southwesterly-to-southerly wind recorded at Marignane suggests a sky lantern released after a celebration. An aircraft approaching to land head-on could also appear as a yellow or orange ball, but although the witness was near an airfield, he was not aligned with its runways and was familiar with aviation. The lantern hypothesis fits the stopping and restarting poorly. GEIPAN notes, however, that weak wind and local terrain can produce irregular airflow. The extraordinary apparent departure speed could result from the lantern's flame rapidly fading out, often interpreted as the object receding. Because strangeness was relatively low, GEIPAN did not request a site investigation. It classifies the case B: probable sky lantern.