Sighting in Les Epesses, October 5, 2019

The witness was at an entertainment park, waiting for the show "Le Bal des Oiseaux Fantômes" to begin. They were looking around, the sky included, hoping to spot any birds of prey or other birds that might appear. They then noticed a strange shape in the sky that moved and changed its appearance, and they filmed it. This was the only account collected.

The investigation established that the shape was a smoke ring produced by the pyrotechnic devices of an earlier show. The park's security service confirmed that the show "Les Vikings" had taken place in the early afternoon, fifteen minutes before the one the witness was attending. That show uses pyrotechnics to create a "tri flamme" that regularly releases black rings of smoke into the sky. The phenomenon most likely results from an interaction between the burning pyrotechnic products and the humidity in the air, and favourable weather allows the smoke to hang motionless for several minutes. The case is compared with another GEIPAN file, the one from Lagnieu in 2016.

The strangeness came from the unusual look of the phenomenon, which the witness could not relate to anything familiar, probably because they had never seen one before. The testimony is consistent and contains enough usable data. GEIPAN classified the case as A: a certain observation of a smoke ring created by a pyrotechnic show.