Sighting in Troyes, January 2, 2015

At 1:30 in the morning, a witness who was looking at the stars from their window suddenly saw a disorderly group of about ten luminous balls pass silently over the town. After roughly 15 seconds the objects disappeared behind the rooftops and the horizon. Only this one witness account was collected.

In a phone follow-up, the witness said their window faced south-west. An astronomical chart showed that Orion was indeed to the south-west, not to the west as the witness had first said, and that the Moon was to the west/south-west. The compass bearings were therefore corrected: the objects had moved away toward the south-south-east.

The description, yellow balls crossing the sky in about a minute on a festive weekend night, strongly suggests Thai lanterns, possibly released nearby at the end of a private party. However, the Météociel record for Troyes showed a light south-easterly wind at ground level, which fits poorly with drift toward the south-south-east. Météo-France reported that the wind at altitude came from the south-west, perpendicular to the ground wind. That could explain the turbulent movements but not the direction of travel. The Thai lantern hypothesis could not be confirmed. With no photo, video or other testimony to cross-check, the GEIPAN classified the case C, insufficient data.