Sighting in Ploemeur, September 2, 2017

At around 10:30 p.m., under a clear night sky, the witness watched about twenty whitish lights pass silently over the Ploemeur and Lorient area. The sighting lasted one to two minutes. The witness phoned a neighbour on their mobile, but the lights were soon lost from view behind the trees of a wood near their home. They described silent objects, each with a twinkling light underneath that lit it up, and no navigation lights or flashing lights visible. Only one questionnaire was collected, as no other witness came forward.

GEIPAN concluded that this was probably a flight of Thai lanterns. The silence and the look of the light match what lanterns typically show. The whole group moved with the wind, from south-south-west to north-north-east, according to a measurement taken 4 km away. It was also a weekend night with a clear sky, favourable to festivities. The witness rejected this explanation, saying the objects were too big, there was no wind, and lanterns would have prompted other reports. GEIPAN replied that an unfamiliar object often leads people to misjudge distance, and therefore size and speed, and that a doorstep is a poor place to judge wind at 100 or 200 m altitude. It added that many people recognise lanterns, which may explain why no one else reported them. The case was classified B.