SAINT-MICHEL-DE-MONTAIGNE (24) 08.03.2020

On 8 March 2020 at about 15:00, a witness in a field saw a dark triangular UAP with rounded corners pass across a cloudy sky. He tried to photograph it, but it was already far away. He then compared its appearance to a palm crown, dense in the centre and without colour, with fronds around its edges moving slowly in the wind. No particular sound was heard. It followed a descending trajectory and was soon lost from view. No other accounts were collected. GEIPAN's analysis favors a novelty balloon, possibly made of Mylar, drifting in the weak wind present at the time (see the investigation report). The unusual decorative shape and movement in the prevailing wind direction support this explanation. Besides its shape, its apparent heaviness seemed unusual; GEIPAN attributes that impression to its bulky appearance, rounded centre and dark colour in the absence of sunlight. The apparent change from a rounded triangle to a dense palm crown with moving peripheral fronds is harder to explain. GEIPAN suggests that an asymmetrical object could have rotated. The witness noticed the new shape after leaving to fetch a monocular. Another possibility is that he saw 2 separate objects. This would require explaining why he never saw both simultaneously. A very small angular size might account for that, but investigators had no precise information on this point. GEIPAN classifies the case B: probable observation of one or 2 novelty balloons.