Sighting in They-sous-Montfort, January 28, 2014

At around 10:15 pm, a witness who was outdoors watched a luminous phenomenon move for two to three minutes. It first looked like a halo, then like a very bright red ball with a small blue tail. The witness first noticed it about 500 metres away. It then came to within roughly 15 metres before moving off again.

Its path was complex: a straight line, a stop, a U-turn with a slight deviation, then a straight line back in the opposite direction at the same height. Finally, it moved diagonally to the left and vanished into the sky almost immediately. Only one account was collected, and an investigator met the witness.

According to GEIPAN, the descriptions were unusual but very consistent, and the place and time make any human activity that could explain the phenomenon highly unlikely. No reasoned conventional explanation could therefore be given. Ball lightning, which is very poorly understood, might possibly fit this complex behaviour: shape, size, colour, brightness, slow and supple movement close to the ground, and sudden disappearance resemble some accounts linked to that phenomenon. However, no factual element supports this hypothesis. The case is classed D1, unexplained, because the description is detailed and the observation rather strange and made in good conditions.