Sighting in Lège-Cap-Ferret, November 26, 2020

The witness was coming back from a walk with their dog at 8:14 pm and was wiping its paws when the animal barked several times in an unusual way. Looking up, the witness saw a glowing sphere, not very dazzling, crossing the sky. It was yellow-orange and moved silently in a straight line, apparently parallel to the ground. It soon vanished behind a nearby house. The sighting lasted only 1 to 3 seconds, within a narrow field of view. Only one account was collected.

The investigation found that the spherical shape and the yellow-orange colour pointed to a luminous object carried by the wind, such as a sky lantern or an LED balloon. The east-to-west movement matched weather data from the Lège-Cap-Ferret and La Teste-de-Buch stations, which supports this hypothesis. The testimony was of moderate consistency: a single witness, and no photo or video. The apparent closeness, the light, the lack of noise and the dog's reaction, which had made the sighting seem strange to the witness, are all explained by this hypothesis. GEIPAN concluded that it was a sky lantern or an LED balloon. The remote investigation could not identify the source or decide between the two, so the case was classified B.