Sighting in Pinterville, May 21, 2016

At around 11:45 pm, a couple driving in a car noticed six orange glowing balls moving slowly above a nearby château. They watched them first while driving, then after pulling over. Four of the balls formed a parallelogram, while the other two traveled separately, one ahead of the group and one behind it. The whole formation moved along a south-to-north path. No sound was heard.

The first ball gradually vanished behind a cloud, while the other five went out all at once. No other witness account was collected.

GEIPAN concluded that the description matched a release of Thai lanterns: the colors, shapes, type of trajectory and the sudden extinction when the burner reached the end of its life all fit. The fact that the sighting took place on a weekend night, a time favorable to festive events, supports this hypothesis. The south-to-north movement also agrees with the wind direction recorded by several stations 20 km away. The case was therefore classified B: Thai lanterns.