Sighting in Elsenheim, May 30, 2024

At around 11:55 p.m., from their terrace, the witness saw five whitish or greenish lights in the sky, unlike anything they had seen before. Intrigued, they immediately called their father, who confirmed seeing the lights as well. Three of the five points flickered, each independently of the others. The witness also noticed a beam that seemed to link the ground to the brightest point. The phenomenon was located at the level of an orange-tinted cloud. It remained visible for about fifteen minutes and then suddenly disappeared.

The witness filled in a Technical Questionnaire the next day and sent it to GEIPAN with a sketch, photos and a video. The case was rated as having good consistency thanks to these materials, even though only one of the two witnesses reported the sighting.

The investigation established that the lights came from tests of a light animation (sky rose, using laser projectors) carried out at the Colmar water sports base, about 10 km away, ahead of a sound and light show held over the following three evenings as part of a festival. Photos from the festival show six greenish beams aimed at the sky, and a newspaper article describes the preparations that evening and the six projectors, which could emit several colors. The azimuth of the sighting, worked out from the photo, was 230°, compared with 240° for the water sports base; the 10° difference is explained by the beams not necessarily being projected vertically. Low clouds and rain over Colmar, reported by the witness and in the article, allowed the light to form patches on the clouds and made at least one beam intermittently visible. The case was classified A.