Sighting in Avolsheim, August 2, 2015

From their bedroom, the witness noticed around 2:25 a.m., on a Saturday-to-Sunday night, somewhere between 10 and 20 white "balls" in a clear sky. They twinkled and seemed to move very slightly on themselves. Their positions relative to one another shifted gradually, but the whole group stayed together. The witness watched with the naked eye and then with binoculars, through which the magnified balls looked like blinking lights, bright and white. They stopped watching around 3:00 a.m. to go to bed, after about 35 minutes. They reported the sighting on 18 September 2016. No other testimony was received, and there are no photos or videos.

GEIPAN rated the case's consistency as low, given the lack of a second witness and of any recordings. Its analysis pointed to a group of LED balloons: point-like lights to the naked eye, spheres through binoculars, a halo probably formed by the balloons' envelopes, white being a common colour for such objects, and blinking possible on some models. The weather (little or no wind, no clouds) and the timing (a summer night, a weekend) were suitable for a balloon release. Weak, probably variable wind, including at altitude, would explain why the objects seemed stationary throughout while still changing position relative to each other. The case was classified B: probable sighting of illuminated LED balloons.