Sighting in Nice, December 19, 1981

On a Saturday morning, between 10:30 and 10:50, several witnesses saw between 50 and 100 objects very high in the sky. Most were round, white and shiny. They moved slowly and silently toward the southwest in a single formation, with uneven gaps between them. The last three looked different, somewhat like tubes, and alternated between white and orange. The objects eventually disappeared behind the landscape and the clouds. Two witnesses made a statement at the gendarmerie. One described a shiny white, like light reflecting off an aluminium plate; the other described round objects of several colours (yellow, green, red, blue), some of which seemed to light up and go out.

GEIPAN noted that this description strongly suggests a group release of balloons. The sighting took place on the last school day before the Christmas holidays, a week before the festivities, so it could have been a mass release of balloons carrying letters written by pupils. The northeast-to-southwest track appears reliable, since the witnesses gave the same direction and the objects passed close to overhead. It differs by about 40° from the wind measured at the Nice station (north to south), but this can be explained: the wind is measured at sea level while the objects were much higher, and the city lies close to mountains. The weak wind, around 7 km/h, matches the slow movement. The varying colours fit balloons of different shades strongly reflecting the sun. The tube-shaped objects could be a few cylindrical two-tone balloons, and the flickering could come from non-symmetrical balloons turning. GEIPAN classed the case as B: probable festive balloons. It had originally been classed D before being re-examined.