Sighting in Saint-Michel-de-Montaigne, March 8, 2020

At around 3 p.m., a witness standing in a field saw a dark object pass beneath a cloudy sky. It was triangular in shape, with rounded corners. The witness tried to take a photo, but the object had already moved far away. They later compared it to a palm tree head, dense at the centre and colourless, with fronds around the edge moving slowly in the wind. No particular sound was heard. The object followed a descending path and was quickly lost from view. No other witness account was gathered.

The investigation concluded that it was very probably a novelty balloon, possibly made of Mylar, drifting with a weak wind present at that time. Its unusual shape and its movement in the direction of that wind support this. Its massive look, round central part and dark colour, with no sun out, account for the impression of heaviness. The change in shape is harder to explain. It may have been caused by the rotation of an asymmetrical object, since the witness had left briefly to fetch a monocular and noticed the new shape afterwards. It could also have been two separate objects, although it would then be necessary to explain why the witness never saw both at once; a very small angular size might account for this, but no precise information is available. GEIPAN classified the case as B: probable observation of one or two novelty balloons.