DARNIEULLES (88) 05.08.2015

On 5 August 2015 between 22:00 and 22:30, 2 people in Darnieulles (88) saw several orange balls move silently through a clear sky, flickering and gradually fading until they went out. Their several-minute passage on a summer night suggested sky lanterns, probably released nearby after a private celebration. They were seen arriving from the southeast. Infoclimat records for Épinal, about 10 km away, showed light but highly variable wind, southerly at 21:00 and northerly at 22:00, so GEIPAN could not correlate it with the observed movement. The second witness described flickering like a candle flame. GEIPAN classifies the case B: probable sky lanterns.