Sighting in Lyon, June 21, 2019

At about 11:40 p.m., a witness standing on their balcony noticed several white balls moving quickly across a cloudy night sky, some of them travelling in circles. They called their son, who also saw the white balls turning in the sky and filmed the scene. The phenomenon made no noise during the observation, which lasted about ten minutes. The first witness then went downstairs and out of the building, but could no longer see anything.

According to the GEIPAN, the witnesses most probably saw laser beams hitting the clouds. The soft glow with blurred edges, looking as if it were behind the clouds, is what a beam reflected on a cloud layer produces. The regular geometric movement (circular here), the presence of several impacts (three) and their chasing play point the same way. The first witness had thought of lasers but ruled it out because of the speed of the movements and the absence of lights on the ground nearby. The GEIPAN considers these poor reasons: laser impacts can move very fast, the clouds present that night made the beams visible, and the equipment on the ground can be tens of kilometres away. It was also the night of the Fête de la Musique in Lyon, with many events, and some concerts may have used light spots. The videos do not contradict this hypothesis: the spots moving in circles do not appear in them, and the glows crossing the frame quickly may have other origins, such as nearby insects lit by the flash. The GEIPAN therefore classified the case as B, probable observation of lasers.