Sighting in Èze, August 5, 2012

Shortly after 10 p.m. on a Sunday evening, a young couple was driving home from Nice. While on the road, and then after pulling over at the roadside, the two witnesses were surprised to see five or six shapes of various colours flashing rapidly and moving past in silence. The shapes were heading west on a descending path and were quickly hidden by a hill. The sighting lasted less than a minute. Only one report was received.

The investigation concluded that the witnesses were most likely unaware that light-up balloons exist, which accounts for the strangeness they felt and for the report being filed. The phenomenon was probably a group of helium-filled balloons whose bright, changing colours came from LEDs inside them. They would have been carried by the east wind blowing that evening: their speed and trajectory fit with a distance of about 300 metres at most between the witnesses and the objects, and this also explains the lack of noise. Two dead-end roads with very little traffic lie above the observation spot and could reasonably have been the setting for a "balloon party". A summer weekend evening is also a likely time for such festivities. The person who released the balloons was never found. GEIPAN classified the case as B (probably identified phenomenon): LED balloons.