Sighting in Avion, September 24, 2012

At about 12:45 a.m., a witness noticed several luminous phenomena in the sky, in the form of white flashes bursting behind a large white cloud. They came from the south and the east. The witness filmed them for 8 minutes with a "spy pen" camera. No sound was heard. The witness's spouse also saw the phenomenon, but only one account was collected. When the witness later watched the footage, they were surprised to find luminous balls that they had not seen at the time.

The GEIPAN investigation found, from lightning strike records, strong storm activity over the Nord-Pas-de-Calais region in the middle of the night, and the witness confirmed that a storm had arrived after 2 a.m. The flashes seen behind the clouds came from this storm activity. The video does not show these flashes, only fixed points of light. This type of camera is very insensitive in low light, so distant lightning hidden behind clouds was probably too faint to register on the sensor. The points of light in the video are most likely fixed lights such as street lamps or similar lighting, which the witness had not seen with the naked eye. Since the camera has no viewfinder, the witness could not compare what they were filming with what they were seeing. GEIPAN classified the case as A: distant lightning ahead of a storm.