SARTROUVILLE (78) 08.05.2020

On 8 May 2020 at about 21:45, a witness at home reported seeing two very bright red spheres, almost stationary or moving slowly. He picked up his camcorder and filmed, but its battery immediately failed, leaving only 16 seconds of footage. The lights went out. Continuing with the naked eye, he then saw two dark gray-black masses taking different paths. One passed almost overhead at an estimated altitude of 1–3 kilometers. The other followed a curved, descending path and seemed to approach him. He described the first as the size of a commercial aircraft such as an A320 but without wings; it disappeared into cloud, and he had not seen it well. The second passed low, appearing elongated with the visual length of a large commercial aircraft, although he could not distinguish its outline. It disappeared behind nearby houses and trees. Only one account was collected. The investigation strongly favors sky lanterns, although the witness did not consider a lantern release. The observation is compatible with them: - Initially, the two UAPs appeared as extremely bright spheres, orange in the attached video, although the witness described them as red. - They then appeared as dark gray-black masses on separate paths. Initially surprising, those paths match the winds that evening. Between 21:45 and 22:00 the wind changed direction. It was only a faint breath: the nearest weather station recorded 0 km/h (see the Winds appendix). The first wind was from sector 31°, thus moving toward the south-southwest, corresponding to the first mass passing over the witness. The second was directed north-northwest, corresponding to the second mass. - The second mass descended toward the ground, typical of a lantern after its flame goes out. - A dark gray-black appearance in the evening fits extinguished lanterns. - The burner heats air inside the envelope and the lantern rises; with very little wind it moves little. When the burner goes out, the air cools, the lantern descends and its envelope can tilt horizontally before reaching the ground. The source attributes the few fires it says lanterns cause to this sequence. - The witness was particularly precise about seeing the lights go out. He drew a rectangle for one dark mass, exactly matching an extinguished lantern tilting lengthwise. The second was described as 'square' with striations, again matching a lantern's framework seen from underneath. He stated: 'Initially the red spheres were between 1 and 3 km high. Once extinguished, one was practically below my head, still between 1 and 3 km. The other was at an altitude of 300–500 meters and a distance difficult to estimate, a few kilometers.' The French quotation says 'below my head', contradicting the preceding overhead description and the quoted kilometer altitude; this inconsistency is retained here (see Winds appendix). The witness's aircraft-sized estimate does not fit lanterns, but the investigation stresses that estimating an unfamiliar object's size in a dark sky without reference points is almost impossible. This discrepancy alone therefore cannot rule out the hypothesis. Although the account initially appeared highly strange, the preceding explanations substantially reduce that strangeness. The file and account have good evidential strength, and even the short video adds value to the precise testimony. It was the evening of a public holiday, favorable to this kind of celebration. The witness was surprised by changes in very weak wind that gave the extinguished lanterns different paths; he also said they were not particularly easy to see. The investigation concludes that sky lanterns were misidentified. GEIPAN classifies the case A: sky lanterns.