CONTAY (80) 05.01.2018

At 22:35 on 5 January 2018, a Contay (80) resident was on the telephone when he saw 2 round orange lights through his living-room windows, travelling west to east across a clear night sky. He went upstairs and used binoculars. The total observation lasted 90 seconds, and no additional accounts were collected. GEIPAN assessed the case as low in strangeness and weak in evidential support, with a single witness and no photograph, and considered 2 sky lanterns very probable; see the investigation report. The description was typical, particularly the witness's comparison with 2 round orange gas lamps used in railway marshalling yards. The path matched the wind, whose speed explained the short sighting. Those responsible for the probable release could not be found. The witness rejected the explanation. GEIPAN considered this very probably due to an overestimate of distance. It explains that visual distance estimates for an unfamiliar object in open sky, especially at night, are unreliable. It thought the witness had likely used his aviation references, assuming aircraft-sized objects. Lanterns are much smaller, so such an assumption could substantially overestimate their actual distance. GEIPAN classified the case B: probable misidentification of 2 sky lanterns.