Sighting in Bischwiller, October 12, 2025

At about 7:37 pm, as night was falling, the sky was calm and no ambient noise could be heard. A witness was cycling with their brother along a farm track at the edge of a forest. The witness noticed a large black object roughly 15 to 20 metres away, about 2 metres tall and 1 metre wide, at an elevation of around 40°. It moved slowly and steadily on a slightly descending path, with no light and no mechanical noise. No wind could be felt.

The witness filmed it on a smartphone in 4K, using the wide-angle setting, and had no time to zoom before the object vanished behind the trees, with no change in speed or direction. The phone's automatic night mode brightened the sky, which made the object look farther away and slightly altered the impression of its real size. The sighting lasted a few seconds. Only the witness contacted the GEIPAN, supplying the original video file, which contains the exact date, time and location. The witness found it strange because of the object's unusual appearance, with no details visible in those conditions.

The GEIPAN explored a single hypothesis, a cluster of festive balloons, and classified the case B (probably identified). A map reconstruction shows the object travelling from north-east to south-west, which, despite a small uncertainty, matches the prevailing north-north-easterly wind in the weather bulletins. Its path was straight, and shape and colour could not be made out in the dusk light. The GEIPAN's IPACO image-analysis software brings out a group of rounded shapes. The sighting took place on a Sunday evening, a time when parties are common. An extensive internet search did not find where the balloons were released; it may have been a private party.