Sighting in Saint-Maime, December 24, 2015

Two people out for a walk at 17:50 watched a bright red light move silently across a slightly cloudy sky for 8 minutes. It climbed, turned more orange, and then vanished into the clouds. Curious, they moved to another spot and saw a black shape emerge from the clouds. It first travelled in a straight line, again without a sound, and then began to descend. Its dark colour eventually blended into the mountain, and the witnesses lost sight of it.

Only one account was collected, even though the witness searched extensively for other observers and for an explanation. The witness judged the object to be very large, twice the size of a glider, and described a honeycomb-like shape. They reported no wind and a moon giving dim light.

GEIPAN found that the colour, shape and brightness are typical of a Thai lantern. The festive date and, above all, the final phase of the sighting point the same way: an object that has gone dark and descends as if to land matches a lantern at the end of its burn, when it stays visible as a grey or black shape if the night is not too dark. Wind felt at ground level often differs from that a hundred metres or so higher up, and a light breeze can carry a lantern about 1 km in 10 minutes. With no local weather data, the trajectory could not be compared with the wind. The silence is explainable for an object carried by the wind, and size is hard to judge when the object's nature and distance are unknown. GEIPAN classified the case as B: a probable Thai lantern, released at a private celebration.