Sighting in Cartelègue, July 7, 2019

At around half past midnight, the witness was in their garden. Looking north, they saw two large orange balls moving side by side, silently and without flickering. Their brightness stayed constant and they moved at the same pace, from west to east, at a distance the witness put between 500 and 1,000 metres. Two more identical balls then joined the first two, and the four formed a trapezoid in the sky, flying in formation. They then disappeared one after another.

The case was judged to have medium consistency: there was only one account, no technical questionnaire (just a gendarmerie report) and a photo whose original source was unavailable. The investigation concluded that the objects were sky lanterns. The night from Saturday to Sunday is a typical time for lantern releases at private celebrations such as weddings. The orange colour is typical, as confirmed by the IPACO photo analysis tool. The west-to-east path matched the wind direction. The successive disappearances are explained by the lanterns burning out at the end of their life. The second group appearing to catch up with the first is probably because it was closer to the witness and so seemed to move faster. There was no rain and the wind was light, ideal conditions for a release.

The witness was told of this hypothesis and rejected it. They cited the spheres' identical size, steady colour and brightness, straight path, shared speed, perfect formation and constant altitude. They also mentioned the photo showing a light trace, and asked about a spectrographic analysis and about checking with aviation authorities (airline sightings, radar echoes). The investigation answered that these features are in fact typical of sky lanterns, including the colour seen in the photo. The time elapsed before the investigation began made it impossible to obtain the radar records of the Armée de l'Air et de l'Espace, but the lantern hypothesis was robust enough to rule out an aircraft explanation. The case was classified A.