Sighting in Pontoise, January 1, 2014

Shortly after one in the morning, a witness standing in a street noticed five yellow-orange glowing balls passing one after another in a cloudy sky. They moved beneath the cloud layer along a straight, horizontal path. The witness was looking south-east and saw them travel from right to left while climbing. They had the impression that the balls were getting closer, which could have been a real approach or simply the result of increasing brightness. After about twenty minutes, the balls disappeared one by one. No other witness account was collected.

The witness submitted a precise, well-documented file that included videos. According to GEIPAN, the footage was zoomed in too far and out of focus, so it showed only an orange color and various optical and digital artifacts, with no detail of the objects. The trajectory proposed in the witness's file was not justified. The wind recorded at Pontoise-Cormeilles was from the south-west, and the Infoclimat reading at Saint-Ouen-l'Aumône gave south-south-west.

GEIPAN classified the case as B. Orange balls following one another along a roughly linear path, in line with the local wind, on a night of celebrations, have all the characteristics of Thai lanterns. The objects were probably much closer than the witness estimated, likely between 1 and 2 km away. The witness rejects this explanation.