Sighting in Valbonne, August 20, 2005

On a summer evening, a witness on holiday, together with four other people, watched several very bright, round, flashing white and yellow lights to the south. They filmed them for about twenty minutes, between roughly 9:20 and 9:45 pm. The video shows white lights appearing one after another, and at times several were visible together. No sound was heard as the lights moved slowly. The witness stopped watching to go and eat while the lights were still there.

The lights first appeared almost straight ahead of the witness and seemed motionless for quite a while, then began to turn to the witness's left. They then vanished behind trees and reappeared lower down and from a different angle, which made flashing lights visible. The witness did not realise that the lights seen head-on, fading behind the trees, were the same ones that came back into view on their left. Only one account and one video were collected.

The path of the lights matches the VOR A approach procedure used by aircraft landing at Nice airport, as shown in the attached reconstruction. Air traffic data for 2005 could not be obtained, but current traffic at the same time of day and season confirms that two or three aircraft can be seen on approach at once. The fact that the witnesses were on holiday rather than local residents may explain the mistake. GEIPAN classified the case as B: a probable misidentification of aircraft.