Sighting in Strasbourg, January 1, 2009

Shortly before 1 a.m. on New Year's night, a witness was in their bedroom looking out of the window. They noticed a red point of light coming out of the cloud layer. It then descended slowly in a curve, followed a horizontal path and stopped in the sky. Its brightness then dropped, it seemed to climb back into the clouds and finally vanished. No other witness came forward.

The GEIPAN considered that this could have been one or two distress flares fired to celebrate the new year. This explanation is plausible and fairly consistent with both the description and the date, but confirming it would be risky, since there are no photos, videos or additional witnesses. The case was therefore classified C, for lack of sufficient information.