Sighting in Saint-Mandrier-sur-Mer, February 28, 2020

At around 7 p.m., the witness was on their way home when an object appeared in the sky. It looked round or spherical and was a shaded orange, with four lights arranged in a square. Its outline was slightly blurred and its apparent size was about that of the Moon. It moved from west to east, at roughly 60° above the horizontal according to the witness. After about three minutes of travel, it gradually faded, turned grey, and vanished in mid-sky. The witness noted that Thai lanterns did not seem to fit. This was the only account collected.

The investigation examined the Thai lantern hypothesis. The witness's drawing may seem odd, but at night a small luminous object easily produces perceptual illusions: it could have been four lanterns close together whose orange halos blended. The sky was clear, with clouds only above 5,000 m according to Météo France. The straight west-to-east path matched the wind direction recorded by nearby stations (265° and 300°). Two stations, 6 and 8 km away, recorded light winds (1 and 3 km/h); the Saint-Mandrier station, 1 km away, recorded 14 km/h, but wind speeds can vary greatly from place to place in a maritime area, so this did not rule out the hypothesis. Fading through grey is typical of a lantern going out, and witnesses perceive this either as a very fast climb or as a disappearance. Finally, three minutes matches the flight time of a Thai lantern.

The characteristics were therefore consistent with Thai lanterns. Because the place where they might have been released was never found, GEIPAN classed the case as B: probable misidentification of Thai lanterns.