Sighting in Sartrouville, May 8, 2020

At about 9:45 p.m., from home, the witness saw two very bright red spheres that were almost motionless or moving slowly. They grabbed a camcorder to film them, but the battery died straight away and the footage lasts only 16 seconds. The lights then went out. The witness kept watching with the naked eye and made out two dark grey to black masses following different paths.

The first passed almost directly overhead, at an altitude the witness put between 1 and 3 kilometres. They compared it to an A320-type airliner without wings, and it vanished into a cloud; they could not observe it well. The second, elongated and as long in appearance as a large commercial aircraft, followed a curving, descending path and seemed to be coming toward the witness at low altitude. Its outline could not be made out, and it disappeared behind neighbourhood houses and trees. Only one account was collected.

GEIPAN favoured the explanation of Chinese (Thai) sky lanterns, which the witness had not considered. In the video the spheres look orange and very bright. Between 9:45 and 10:00 p.m. the very weak wind shifted, blowing first toward the south-south-west and then toward the north-north-west, matching the two paths. The descent of the second mass, the grey-black colour and the observed extinction are typical of lanterns whose burner has gone out; the shapes described (a rectangle, a streaked square) fit a lantern lying on its side or seen from below. The estimated size does not fit this explanation, but judging size at night without reference points is nearly impossible. It was the evening before a public holiday, a time when such releases are likely. The file was solid and was classified A: sky lanterns.