PINTERVILLE (27) 21.05.2016

At 23:45 on 21 May 2016, a couple in a car at Pinterville (27), first driving and then stopped, saw 6 orange luminous balls moving slowly above a nearby château. One led and another trailed a central group of 4 forming a parallelogram. All travelled south to north. The first gradually disappeared behind cloud; the remaining 5 vanished suddenly. No sound was heard, and no additional accounts were collected. GEIPAN found the colour, shape, path and eventual extinction characteristic of a sky-lantern release. Weekend-night timing favoured a celebration, and the south-to-north motion matched wind measured at several stations about 20 km away; see Infoclimat. It classified the case B: sky lanterns.