Sighting in Argelès-sur-Mer, July 13, 2014

At about 3:15 pm, three members of the same family were on the beach when they noticed a dark disk with blurry edges moving across a cloudy sky. The sighting lasted three to four minutes. The witnesses saw no trail and heard no noise. The object then moved away inland until it disappeared. Only one questionnaire was collected, and an investigator was assigned to meet the witnesses.

The investigation found the account reliable: because several people saw the object, hallucination or a vision problem could be ruled out, and the information gathered was plentiful and consistent (consistency of 0.8). The strangeness of the event was tempered, however, by the lack of any testimony from outside the family (0.45). Plausible explanations were put forward, but no formal proof could be provided. GEIPAN therefore classified the case as category B, a probable sighting of an airship or a free balloon: an advertising or surveillance airship, or an amateur balloon.