Sighting in Lachelle, July 14, 2012

At 10:50 p.m., during local festivities and just before the fireworks began, a witness was intrigued by an orange light crossing the sky from east to west without making any sound. It looked like a halo of orange light and was visible only briefly. The witness was not familiar with this kind of object and so could not estimate its real distance or its size.

GEIPAN found that the appearance of the light, the way it moved given the strong, steady west wind (Meteociel records), its short duration and the date of the sighting, Bastille Day, were consistent in every respect with the passage of a Thai lantern. GEIPAN did not try to trace whoever may have released it. The case was classified B: probable sighting of a Thai lantern drifting past.