LYON (69) 06.06.2015

On 6 June 2015 at 00:14, 2 witnesses were intrigued by an orange mass in the sky above Lyon and a lighter orange geometric shape within it. The phenomenon moved away very quickly in a straight line. No sound was heard. The witnesses themselves suggested a cloud. Their reservations about this explanation may concern the orange color, the final geometric shape or the rapid final movement. T2 found nothing strange about the color. GEIPAN adds that a low cloud above a city acts as a projection screen for urban lighting, reflecting orange streetlights. These lights can be very powerful near, for example, a stadium or a brightly lit major road junction. If spotlights shine upward, the cloud displays their beams. Conditions at Lyon-Bron that night were overcast, with a south to southwest wind according to Météociel. The observed movement matched the wind direction. An Ethnotek event was being held in Parc de Gerland that evening, in a direction close to the sighting. Its lighting effects could have illuminated the sky in an unusual way. Cloud shapes commonly change rapidly. Any shape is possible, and some, particularly geometric ones, are more suggestive than others. Only T1 reported the rapid final movement, without explicitly presenting it as an additional objection to the cloud hypothesis. Without objective information about the perceived speed, nothing appears incompatible with a moving cloud, especially with wind at ground level that may have been stronger aloft. GEIPAN concludes that this was probably a cloud and classifies the case B: cloud.