Sighting in Montmarault, September 29, 2012

On a Saturday evening, two witnesses watched thirty to forty glowing red-orange spheres pass silently across the night sky. The spheres followed one another at regular intervals of about 20 to 25 seconds, moving in a straight line along the same north-south axis. They appeared to gather above a forest in the distance. The witnesses decided to go to the spot, but the spheres were gone. One of them put their speed at 50 km/h. A gendarmerie report was drawn up.

The investigation concluded that they had seen Thai lanterns. The orange glow, the lack of noise and the drift with the wind all fit these objects: a candle heats the air inside the envelope, which rises like a hot-air balloon and then stays at a steady altitude as long as no gust occurs. The weather that evening was a north-south wind of 10 to 15 km/h, cloud cover of 6/8, 12°C and 1020 hPa, which matches the path described. The 50 km/h figure is a large overestimate: the distance to an unrecognised object is hard to judge, and for the same angular speed, overestimating the distance means overestimating the speed. The gendarmerie report mentions a wedding party, and a Saturday night lends itself to celebrations; successive lantern releases explain the spacing of the spheres. Their apparent gathering above the forest, like the impression that the first ones were waiting for the others, was a perspective effect, like railway tracks seeming to meet at the horizon. The disappearance matches the candle burning out: without heat, the lantern became invisible and fell. GEIPAN classified the case as A.