Sighting in Fréjus, July 13, 1979

At 1:10 p.m., two witnesses working at the Mont Vinaigre lookout post, in the Esterel massif, noticed a very bright spherical object moving about in the landscape, and its movements intrigued them. When they gave their statements to the gendarmerie, a sketch was drawn up showing the object's successive movements. One of the witnesses watched it through binoculars: it came down vertically out of a cloud, moved down the hill in jerks, passed from one hill to another, stopped several times, and finally rose again and vanished into a cloud. No other witness came forward, and the radar services contacted by the gendarmerie had detected nothing.

GEIPAN re-examined the case, which had originally been classed D. It noted that the wind that day reached a maximum of 34 knots, with turbulent air over rugged terrain. A wind of only 10 to 15 knots is enough to make a lighter-than-air balloon, such as a Mylar balloon, drift erratically both horizontally and vertically. In addition, the distance of an unknown phenomenon cannot be judged properly, so it can be overestimated, and with it the speeds inferred from angular movement alone, which makes the object seem stranger. Finally, the aluminized skin of these balloons reflects sunlight strongly, so at a distance their shape, any decorative design and the inflation nozzle cannot be made out. GEIPAN concluded that the witnesses had probably seen a Mylar balloon and classed the case B.