Sighting in Perpignan, January 4, 2025

Around 6 p.m., a witness driving with their partner noticed about ten flickering red lights moving across the sky. They stopped, got out of the vehicle and filmed the scene on their smartphone. Their parents, alerted at the same moment, said they had also seen the lights from another location, which allowed a partial cross-check. The whole event lasted about ten minutes. The witness sent GEIPAN a completed technical questionnaire and a 2-minute 08-second video. The other people did not submit a questionnaire.

In the video, ten lights rise slowly through the sky, with clearly visible ground landmarks. The IPACO software authenticated the footage and confirmed that the colours were consistent with sky lanterns. All the lights start from a single point on the ground, climb continuously at a steady speed, keep a constant gap between them and never overtake one another. Their apparent speed and heading match a light northward wind of 4 to 6 km/h. One light that seems to travel the other way is only a reflection, and the highest ones go out in the order they arrived.

The Prefecture had received no request for permission to release balloons or lanterns on that date, and the municipal and national police had no information about the lights. GEIPAN considers it highly likely that this was an unauthorised lantern release during a festive, sporting or cultural event, since the sighting took place on a Saturday in the late afternoon. It classed the case A: sky lanterns. The strangeness perceived probably came from the witnesses' distance from the lights.