Sighting in Sciez, September 8, 2018

During a weekend with family, the witness noticed an object in the sky between 5:20 and 5:50 pm that they could not make sense of. They described an equilateral black triangle slowly crossing the sky in silence while spinning on itself. It seemed larger than an airliner to them. Its sides reflected the sunlight, as if intensifying it, and small flashes seemed to come from underneath, though the witness acknowledged this might just have been a reflection. They first thought of a failing satellite, then dismissed the idea because the sighting lasted too long. After about twenty minutes the object lost a little altitude, then slowly climbed again while changing direction slightly. At the end it looked like nothing more than a twinkling star in broad daylight.

The witness was the only one to report the event, but the account came with a video that could be analysed, giving the case good consistency. In the video, the witness can be heard exclaiming "What is that thing?"

The investigation concluded that the witness had very probably seen a novelty balloon, a festive helium-filled balloon, carried by the weak local wind. Its shape and colour match what such balloons can look like. It drifted in the direction of the prevailing wind, and its triangular shape explains why the wind made it spin, as seen in the video. Its low speed is also consistent with that of the wind. The strangeness the witness felt came from not recognising the object, along with the silence, the rotation and an overestimate of its size. GEIPAN classified the case as A.