Sighting in Toulouse, June 12, 2010

Between 2:00 and 2:30 pm, several people gathered around a barbecue noticed a black, triangular object high in the sky. At first it seemed motionless, then it followed an upward path and eventually vanished behind a cloud.

That day the wind was blowing from the north/northwest, and the witness was looking in that direction, so facing into the wind. A balloon rising while drifting with the wind would therefore look as if it was hardly moving to the observer. The triangular shape suggests a tetrahedral balloon, which would look black because it was seen against the light, with the sun at its zenith. It could have been a weather balloon launched from Blagnac or by Météo-France, or a toy balloon released from the city centre, where many end-of-year celebrations were taking place that day.

The movement, colour and shape of the object are all consistent with a balloon filled with hydrogen or helium and carried by the wind. GEIPAN therefore classified the case as B: probable observation of a balloon.