Sighting in Le Pian-Médoc, June 18, 2019

Around 11 p.m., while closing their shutters, the witness noticed an intense light moving in an unusual way. It was a flickering red point or circle that went back and forth, darting in every direction as if jumping from one spot to another across a large part of the sky. The witness stepped out to their French window to get a better view: the circle had vanished, leaving a very bright yellow line that then disappeared as well. They went to get their mobile phone in case the phenomenon came back.

At 11:10 p.m., a luminous point appeared again with the same odd movement, and the witness filmed it. A second point below it moved in the same way. Both then vanished, and the witness could not say how. After waiting 20 to 30 minutes, at about 11:40 p.m., two points, sometimes yellow and sometimes red, moved erratically. They seemed to grow larger, drew closer to each other, then disappeared instantly. The witness, who was alone, made two videos. The last frame of one of them shows a colored party light ball.

The investigation found that the witness's description matches ball lightning, of the globular lightning type, in appearance, behavior, apparent trajectory and altitude. The Laboratoire de Recherche sur la Foudre, to which the account was submitted, unambiguously recognized the phenomenon. A powerful multicellular thunderstorm was affecting the area, with 123 lightning strikes recorded within 10 km between 9 p.m. and 1 a.m. In the video, flashes of lightning reveal well-structured cumulus towers, indicating a violent storm active through all levels of the troposphere. GEIPAN classified the case A.