Sighting in Caumont-sur-Durance, August 19, 2017

One August evening, between 10:00 and 10:10 pm, a witness and their spouse were on the terrace of their second-floor apartment. They saw about twenty white points of light moving in formation along a straight path across a clear sky. The movement was fast, with no sound and no trail. It lasted roughly three to four minutes, with the group moving away toward the south. The witness later contacted Avignon aerodrome and the gendarmerie, without result. They ruled out a drone, Thai lanterns, an aircraft and space debris. No other account of the event was collected.

According to GEIPAN, the description matches a flight of Thai lanterns. The witness objected mainly because of the speed, which they compared to that of an aircraft. However, an observer perceives only angular speed. Here the group covered about 60° from north to south in four minutes. At a height of 100 m, that amounts to around 200 m travelled, or roughly 3 km/h, and double that at 200 m, a height that seems more likely since the witness saw points of light rather than shapes. The nearby weather station at Les Cabannes (Infoclimat) recorded a north-to-south wind of 3 to 6 km/h, with gusts of 12 km/h, which fits a flight at higher altitude (up to 500 m), where lanterns look like stars. The summer season and a weekend evening, when lantern releases at festive events are common, support the hypothesis. GEIPAN therefore classified the case as B: probably Thai lanterns.