Sighting in Chambéry, June 3, 2018

On a Sunday evening, around 10:45 p.m., a witness was surprised to see a round, orange-red light moving silently across an overcast sky. Looking through binoculars, they saw that it was actually three orange-red balls lined up horizontally. They also noticed a kind of blurry halo above the three balls. The objects eventually moved away toward the north, still silent and at the same speed. Another person present also saw the phenomenon, without using binoculars, and did not give a statement. The reported duration of the observation was 30 minutes.

According to the investigation, nearly all of the physical and dynamic characteristics pointed to a group of lanterns carried by the wind. One issue remained: a 30-minute duration is hard to reconcile with ordinary lanterns, whose maximum burn time seems to be about 20 minutes. A second hypothesis was therefore put forward: festive light-up balloons with built-in LEDs, all orange, which can last several hours. Exchanges with the witness did not resolve this inconsistency, and even brought out another element that fits poorly: a steady tilt of -10 to +10° relative to the horizontal during the movement, with the three objects staying aligned. The case closely resembles an observation made the previous day at La Motte-Servolex, at about the same time and roughly 2 km away, which also involved a very long duration. GEIPAN classified the case as B: probable observation of a group of three flying lanterns or festive light-up balloons with built-in LEDs.