Sighting in Schoelcher, November 12, 2017

In the late afternoon, from home, a witness noticed a very bright, white, opaque, egg-shaped object at the zenith. The sky was clear. The witness watched it through binoculars and thought of a weather balloon, but was surprised that the object stayed almost motionless. No particular sound was heard.

The observation began at about 5:15 pm local time. The witness and the gendarmerie unit's patrol followed the phenomenon until around 6:15 pm, when it moved off toward the east. The witness took a photograph, but the original was not sent to the GEIPAN. Only one account was collected. Both the witness and the gendarmes took it for a passing weather balloon.

This hypothesis was checked with the air transport brigade at Le Lamentin. Consulting the Flight Radar website showed that it was a balloon launched from Puerto Rico, which high-altitude winds had pushed toward Martinique. Such balloons belong to Project Loon, which aims to provide Internet access to disaster-stricken or hard-to-reach areas using high-altitude balloons. After Hurricane Maria struck Puerto Rico in September 2017, a fleet of these balloons was deployed so that people there, cut off from cellular service by the destruction of antennas, could use the basic functions of their phones. The GEIPAN classified the case "A": the observation of a stratospheric balloon that had come from Puerto Rico.