Sighting in Monétay-sur-Allier, September 2, 2012

At around 12:25 pm, during a family gathering, a witness noticed a white object hanging motionless fairly high in the sky. They pointed it out to the others present, who showed little interest, assuming it was probably a hot-air balloon or something ordinary. The witness fetched their camera and took two photographs, the second with a stronger zoom. They then went back to what they had been doing, without keeping the object constantly in view. The sighting lasted about ten minutes, and the object did not appear to change position noticeably.

GEIPAN received only one account, which the witness submitted on 2 January 2016. The two photographs gave the case good consistency. Based on the parameters of the sighting, analyses carried out with the IPACO software and GEIPAN's experience with this type of event, the investigation settled on a gas balloon taking part in a race. The 56th Gordon Bennett Cup was under way at the time: it started in Switzerland, and the prevailing winds carried most of the seventeen crews over central France, with several passing close to the site of the sighting, as the map of the flight paths shows. GEIPAN classified the case as A: the object was a gas balloon from that ballooning race.