Sighting in Bou, May 2, 1990

Three witnesses saw an aerial phenomenon from their garden and then from the street in front of their home, at around 9 p.m., while it was still daylight. The object passed silently across the sky and disappeared at the horizon. The witnesses described it as oval, although their drawings show more of a half-sphere, silver-grey and with a polished look. Hanging beneath it were appendages, rods or "tentacles". Flashes of reflected light appeared on its surface; one witness thought they came from the sun's rays. The object moved at a constant speed, in the same direction as the wind, which was light. The witnesses estimated the observation lasted between one and five minutes.

GEIPAN re-examined the case, which had first been classified D. It found all these elements consistent with a novelty Mylar balloon, which reflects sunlight and drifts in a straight line with the wind. The appendages could have been the strings used to hold it, or part of the balloon itself, such as the legs of an animal-shaped one. Such balloons already existed in 1990. The area is built up, and a party or some kind of event, possibly in another village upwind, could have taken place that day. Nearly thirty years later, the lack of any trace of such an event does not rule out this explanation. During the original investigation, GEIPAN had little experience of mistakes of this kind. It classified the case B, a probable Mylar balloon. Consistency is medium, based mainly on the close match between the witnesses' descriptions and sketches, and on the maps of the site and of the object's path drawn up by the gendarmes.