Sighting in Peigney, August 17, 2016

At about 5:45 a.m., a witness on their terrace noticed an orange glow due west, in a field at ground level. With the naked eye and then with binoculars, they made out a large, motionless orange light accompanied by three small luminous balls in a line. These seemed to revolve around the large glow. The witness put the distance at 2 km. The phenomenon lasted two to three minutes: the witness went to fetch a camera and found on returning that it had vanished. Only one account was collected.

The investigation placed the source on a hill about 2 km away, in a different commune, near a track. It judged the sighting not very strange: it could have been farm machinery or an ordinary vehicle, with people moving around it carrying torches, which would explain the apparent rotation. In the statement, the witness also described a similar sighting in June 2012, around 3 a.m., on the same hill, within a few dozen metres: moving lights around a central glow first described as a flame. The witness added that a church that can host scouts stands there, which offered another possible explanation. GEIPAN classified the case as B: probably ground lights from a vehicle or a campfire, with people carrying flashlights or torches.