Sighting in Lille, February 21, 2015

At 11:30 pm, a driver and their passenger noticed several orange lights moving silently across the night sky. Only one account was collected. The objects looked like orange balls and crossed the sky within a few minutes. It was a weekend evening.

The investigation found that the description strongly suggested Thai lanterns, probably released nearby at the end of a private party. That Saturday was the first one after Chinese New Year, an occasion when floating lanterns are often launched. However, the witness was travelling by car and saw the many objects only intermittently, so their exact path could not be reconstructed and compared with the wind direction, a light easterly according to the Météociel record. GEIPAN received no other reports of this kind in Lille for that evening.

Because the lantern explanation could not be verified, despite the close resemblance, GEIPAN classed the case as C, for lack of information. The witness rejects the lantern hypothesis that was put to them.