Moving in formation in Alpes-Maritimes, France

GEIPAN continues to publish all of its archives on its public website www.geipan.fr. Among its publications are old cases classified at the time (A, B, C, or D) which are now being re-examined, for the sole purpose of being more relevant in the conclusions. Thanks to new technical means (software) and the investigation experience acquired over all these recent years, this re-examination sometimes leads to new remarks or even a change of classification explained in an investigation note. This observation case, previously classified D and named NICE (06) 1981, is part of a set of cases recently re-examined. On Saturday, December 19, 1981, between 10:30 a.m. and 10:50 a.m., several witnesses observed between 50 and 100 flying objects very high in the sky. Most of these objects were round in shape, white and shiny; they moved in the direction of the Southwest in a single formation with an unequal distance between each object. Their speed was slow and they made no noise. The last three objects had a different shape, like a sort of tube. These changed color, passing alternately from white to orange. These objects disappeared, hidden by the landscape and the clouds. Two witnesses filed a report with the gendarmerie. The description of the UAP(s) made by the witnesses strongly recalls a group release of balloons (see investigation notes). It should be noted that the observation took place on a Saturday morning, the last day of school before the Christmas holidays of 1981. One week before the Christmas festivities, the observation could thus be explained by a massive release of balloons with letters written by students. The indicated trajectory from NE to SW seems reliable, because the witnesses indicate the same direction and saw the UAPs pass near their vertical (which favors the assessment of the direction of movement). This direction is not exactly that of the wind, which is from North to South. But it is noted: - that the wind is measured at sea level while the possible balloons were moving 6 km away and at more than 100 m altitude (given their small appearance) and perhaps even higher, since presumably launched from the heights of Nice, - that one is in the city and near the mountains (factors favoring local variabilities). These are all elements that can explain that the wind at the UAP level had a direction different by 40° from that measured at the Nice station. Note moreover that the wind measured from 12:00 was from East to West and that it could therefore have begun to turn a little earlier at the altitude of the UAPs. Furthermore, the slowness and the travel time of the objects composing the UAP are consistent with a weak wind measured at around 7 km/h. The appearance of the colors and glows of the UAPs varies depending on the witnesses. T2 retains different colors among the round-shaped UAPs and different colors (yellow-green-red-blue); T1 retains a "bright white color giving a reflection resembling that of a light on an aluminum plate." These two descriptions are compatible with balloons of presumably different colors and strongly reflecting the sun (the sun-balloons-witnesses geometry is favorable to the reflection). T1 distinguishes different UAPs (at the end of the formation). The shape is no longer round but that of tubes, and the color of each of them alternates between orange and white. This can be explained by the introduction into this release, massively composed of round balloons, of a few more complex balloons, cylindrical, with two faces and of different colors. Note that T2 did not distinguish UAPs different from the others, apart from the fact that "over the whole there were some that lit up and went out." On this last point, the combination of the two testimonies is explained by a shape of (some) balloons that is not symmetrical, favoring spinning and therefore the variation of reflection or color depending on the reality of the balloons or depending on the particularities and precision of perception of the witnesses. Consequently, GEIPAN classifies the case as B: probable observation of festive balloons (party balloons).