Sighting in Cap-d'Ail, July 28, 2014

At around 9 p.m., a witness saw two dark objects crossing the sky above the sea and photographed them. When the objects reached a point directly overhead, the witness went back into their apartment, then came out again to film them.

The objects flew in a straight line, which pointed the investigation toward balloons, for example children's helium balloons, often shiny (mylar), of the kind found at funfairs. The witness saw the objects as brown, but they were looking against the light, and under those conditions any object looks very dark. The doubling of the object may be a perspective effect, with two balloons one behind the other. The brief bright point could be sunlight reflecting off a balloon, visible only in certain positions. Analysis of the photo gives an angular size of about 0.2°, equivalent to an object 70 cm across seen from 200 m away, which is consistent with a child's balloon carried by the wind.

Météociel reports a weak, very unstable wind, which also varies along the coast. It is therefore impossible to confirm that the objects were moving with the wind, even though their motion in the witness's video seems consistent with that idea. Lacking this information, the GEIPAN classified the case as C (insufficient data), while noting that the balloon hypothesis fits the observation.