GONDECOURT (59) 06.06.2021

On 6 June 2021 at 10:56 in Gondecourt (59), a witness saw a bright point apparently very high in the sky. It moved slowly from northwest towards west, following straight segments despite making about-turns, as though carried by wind aloft. He took photographs and noticed that it looked quite different in each, with sunlight reflecting off its surface, which he felt showed that it was a physical object. GEIPAN received no other account. GEIPAN finds moderate strangeness and very good evidential substance: a single but complete account with photographs of the UAP. The images and description of a reflective surface and slow straight motion with turns strongly suggest a windborne object with a metallic finish, such as a party balloon. A Google Earth image supplied by the witness, withheld to protect the observation location's privacy, shows the UAP moving from azimuth 348°, north-northwest, to 235°, west-southwest. The source describes this as movement oriented at 23°. Lesquin weather station, 9 km away, recorded wind from 20° at 11 km/h, gusting to 18 km/h; see the attachment. GEIPAN considers the UAP's trajectory entirely consistent with the wind, and the about-turns explicable by local directional variations given those gusts. GEIPAN concludes that this was very probably a windborne object such as a party balloon. The case is classified A.