Sighting in Vaugneray, May 22, 2018

The witness was on the terrace of their home, on the third and top floor of the building, when they noticed a dark, almost black object with shiny reflections at 2:09 p.m. They compared it to a pétanque ball or a bowling ball. It crossed the sky from north to south in a straight line at high speed. The sighting lasted between one minute and one and a half minutes, long enough for the witness to take a photograph. No other witness account was collected.

The witness then carried on investigating. After ruling out a drone, following contacts with the Lyon drone service and the Gendarmerie des Transports Aériens at Lyon Saint Exupéry, they turned to the idea of a bird of prey. Between 22 May and 9 June 2018, they made many observations at the same time of day and in similar weather conditions. They spotted very large raptors coming from the Courzieux animal park, which is home to 200 birds of prey. Their many photographs showed that, from a particular angle, these birds look like a ball. On 9 June, the witness reproduced both the sighting and the photograph of 22 May.

GEIPAN concluded that the object was a large black bird of prey from the Courzieux park, gliding slowly on a steady heading. The sun overhead explains the reflections and the spherical appearance, which were an optical illusion. The case was classified A: observation of a bird.