Sighting in Bourg-lès-Valence, April 28, 2014

At around 10 p.m., a couple driving in a car noticed about ten points of light in the night sky. They were yellow-orange balls moving silently southward. The sighting lasted three minutes, after which the balls vanished in the distance. The witnesses took a few photographs with a mobile phone, and two statements were collected.

The gendarmerie investigation found no particular event and no other witnesses in the area that evening. GEIPAN concluded that the witnesses very probably saw Thai lanterns, most likely released nearby at the end of a private party. The movement, from north to south and then southwest, matches the light north to north-easterly wind (3 to 5 km/h) recorded at Bourg-les-Valence; the steep terrain around the Crussol castle disturbs low-altitude wind and may explain the change of direction. The photos are blurred or shaken, which is very common at night, but they confirm the phenomenon was real, and its colour is consistent with that of Thai lanterns. The witness's distance estimate cannot be accurate, since they had never seen this kind of object: such lanterns are only faintly luminous, so they always seem farther away, and therefore larger and faster, than they really are. The case was classified B.