CAUMONT-SUR-DURANCE (84) 19.08.2017

On 19 August 2017 between 22:00 and 22:10, a witness and his wife, on the terrace of their second-floor apartment, saw about 20 white points of light moving in formation along a straight path through a clear sky. No sound or trails accompanied their apparently rapid movement. The observation lasted about 3–4 minutes as the phenomenon moved away southward; its overall direction was north to south. The witness contacted Avignon airfield and the gendarmerie without obtaining an explanation. He rejected drones, sky lanterns, aircraft and space debris. Only 1 account was collected. GEIPAN finds the description consistent with a group of sky lanterns. The witness's principal objection was their speed, which he estimated as comparable to an aircraft's. GEIPAN explains that a witness perceives only angular speed. Here the reported north-to-south movement covered 60° overhead in 4 minutes. For a lantern at 100 m altitude, that represents about 200 m of travel, or approximately 3 km/h. Those values double at 200 m altitude, which GEIPAN considers more likely because the witness distinguished points of light rather than shapes. Infoclimat measurements from the station at Les Cabannes, a few kilometers away, showed precisely a north-to-south wind of 3–6 km/h. Gusts of 12 km/h also support the possibility of flight at greater altitude, up to 500 m, where lanterns would indeed look more like stars. The observation also occurred on a summer weekend evening, a likely time for celebrations involving lantern releases. GEIPAN consequently classifies the case B: probable sky lanterns.