MENAT (63) 31.07.2018

On Tuesday 31 July 2018 between 23:00 and 23:15, 2 people in a village lane in Menat (63) saw 4 white lights pass silently across the clear night sky, travelling from northeast towards southwest. They appeared grouped and flashed rapidly according to the source summary. The observation lasted about 1 minute. The witnesses sent GEIPAN a video reconstruction of what they saw. GEIPAN finds moderate strangeness and good evidential substance, with 2 witnesses and a reconstruction but no photograph. It considers this probably a misidentification of LED balloons; see the investigation report. The fairly precise account establishes the time window between streetlights going out at 23:00 and an airliner passing at 23:15. Moving lights grouped together, complete silence and a trajectory matching the wind are typical of a group of floating balloons. However, their colour and flashing differ from common sky-lantern reports, allowing GEIPAN to rule out sky lanterns. LED balloons can be white and can have a slow flashing mode, which GEIPAN offers as an explanation, although the summary describes rapid flashing. GEIPAN considers the witnesses' failure to recognise them understandable because these festive devices are less common than ordinary sky lanterns. Without precise confirmation of an LED-balloon release, it regards the hypothesis as probable rather than certain. The case is classified B: probable misidentification of LED balloons.