Sighting in Jézeau, July 10, 2024

Two witnesses, a mother and her son, saw a very bright white ball of light from their home, close to a relay antenna on top of a hill facing them, to the south-southwest. One of them watched from about 1 a.m. to 4 a.m., the other from 2:30 a.m. to 4 a.m. They first looked from inside the house, then from a balcony.

The light moved irregularly over a short horizontal distance and occasionally split in two. Small white balls of light sometimes dropped away from it toward the ground, then rose back up. No sound was heard. One witness filmed a few minutes of it, but the video was of little use. When the witnesses stopped watching at 4 a.m., the phenomenon was still visible.

GEIPAN considered the case reasonably consistent, even though only one of the two witnesses reported the sighting. Several explanations were examined: an aircraft (a helicopter or drone), an object on the ground in the mountains linked to the Saint-Lary-Soulan ski area, or nighttime maintenance work on the antenna. The last one was confirmed by TDF, the infrastructure operator: a crew was painting the pylon that night, working after dark to limit the risk of service disruption. Fresh paint was found on the structure during the field investigation. The movements the witnesses saw most likely matched technicians carrying lamps and climbing up and down the structure. GEIPAN classified the case as A (identified).