VILLEURBANNE (69) 16.08.2022

On 16 August 2022 at 19:30, a witness was flying his drone above the Rhône in the Parc de la Feyssine, described in the narrative as Lyon and catalogued under Villeurbanne (69). He saw another flying object about 100 m ahead moving upstream and immediately thought it another drone, with similar size, speed and altitude to his own. It flew horizontally along the river about 20 m above the water at a steady 30 km/h. The 2 craft passed about 10 m apart. He was convinced it was another drone, but was surprised that it was perfectly spherical, uniformly dark grey/black, matt and metallic-looking, about 15 cm in diameter, with no wings explaining how it could fly. His own drone's camera faced the wrong way and did not record it. This was a brief daylight observation. Only 1 account was collected. GEIPAN concludes that he did see a drone, but an unusual shape caused the sense of strangeness. It very probably resembled the spherical PITTA drone. The source supplies images and a video of that model's capabilities. The case is classified A: drone.