YUTZ (57) 09.01.2022

On 9 January 2022 at 19:53, a witness in Yutz (57) was absorbed in observing the Moon with an A2-GTI mount fitted with a Nikon P1000 when he noticed 2 white points of light towards the red star Betelgeuse, apparently stationary at the star's elevation. He instinctively aimed his mount at them to examine them. Having obtained no useful result, he looked with the naked eye and noticed the 2 UAPs moving slowly to the right, towards the south-southeast, becoming orange and more or less spherical. Both gradually faded out. The observation lasted a few seconds. The case has a moderate amount of reliable information: 1 witness, no images, but some technical details about shape, colour and direction of motion. GEIPAN's analysis finds the strangeness fairly low; see the investigation report. The witness's reported sense of strangeness seems mainly to have arisen from finding a “similar” account from Pas-de-Calais on a social network. That witness could not be located to compare the observations. The appearance, shape, disappearance, colours—especially at the very end—weather, time and day, a Sunday evening, all point towards sky lanterns or LED-lit balloons. These are closely related explanations, both involving windborne objects. The orange colour and fading out lead GEIPAN to favour sky lanterns, also called flying or Thai lanterns. The UAPs' direction did not match the wind data perfectly, but the weather station was 8 km from the witness. GEIPAN explains that very low wind speed, gusts and movement above a town can produce local changes in direction. GEIPAN classifies the case B: probable observation of sky lanterns.