Sighting in Verny, August 18, 2024

A witness noticed three large, round orange lights arranged in a triangle in the sky at around 9:30 p.m. They moved slowly from north to south, gradually climbed, and vanished into the clouds. Two more similar lights followed and disappeared at the same spot. The phenomenon made no sound at all. The people with the witness saw it too, and a neighbour also watched it, bringing the total to five witnesses.

The main witness stayed calm and focused, and chose not to film despite being urged to by relatives. A member of the household nonetheless recorded a short clip, in which the lights look smaller than they did to the naked eye.

GEIPAN rated the case as moderately strange and of good consistency, given the several witnesses and a video that could be analysed. The description, orange points of light moving together and giving an impression of mass, fits sky lanterns closely, especially as the apparent path ran roughly in the direction of the wind. Analysis of the video with IPACO® found nothing objective to rule out that explanation. The video received was not the original: it was heavily compressed and had lost technical data after being sent through WhatsApp, which limited further study. The place where the lanterns were released could not be determined. The case is classified B: probable observation of sky lanterns.