Red lights in Haute-Loire, 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, with the sole aim 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. This observation case, previously classified D and named LAVOUTE-CHILHAC (43) 09.10.1994, is part of a set of cases recently re-examined. On 9 October 1994 at around 9:45 a.m., a witness (T1) on duty during a hunting drive observed for 25 to 30 minutes the silent movements of a luminous white cylindrical object with silvery metallic reflections. The witness also noted blue and red lights. He followed it with his eyes until it was out of sight. Meeting his brother (T2) afterwards, the latter told him that, located near his home at around 9:30 a.m., he had also seen a luminous object that had intrigued him. T2 described an object cylindrical in its upper part and semi-circular in its lower part, reflecting the sun and moving across the landscape. After 30 minutes of observation, this witness decided to stop following the object. The physical characteristics (shape but especially metallic appearance and the witnesses' mention of "silvery reflections") and dynamic characteristics (slow movements, mainly horizontal, close to the ground and in a hollow, generated by local meteorological conditions in a mountain area in the morning) are fully consistent with the hypothesis of confusion with a metallized nylon balloon of the "Mylar" type. One of the witnesses (T2) also thinks of a balloon (see the investigation report). At the start of the observation, the sun has not yet had time to heat the parts of the atmosphere closest to the ground, and in particular those sheltered in the hollows. Thus, the Mylar balloon is still subject to local sunlight conditions, weak or nonexistent, and to very weak local currents, which makes it "wander" according to these, remaining close to the ground. This state persists until the moment when, as the sun rises higher, it manages to warm the balloon's envelope, whose contained air expands. The consequence of this is to allow this balloon to become lighter than the surrounding air and therefore to leave the ground to rise slowly and steadily in altitude, as witness T1 describes at the end of the observation. It is entirely plausible that this balloon was already present the previous evening. It was then a Saturday; the balloon could have been launched from a neighboring village, the temperature dropping at nightfall having contracted the air it contains, causing it to descend to the ground in a hollow, from which it only comes out the next morning, when temperature conditions become favorable again. The consistency of the case is good, with two very precise independent testimonies and an on-site investigation by the gendarmes, who established a situation plan. At the time of the observation, GEIPAN had no or little experience with balloon cases. That is no longer the case since (search the site www.geipan with the keyword balloon or mylar). Consequently, GEIPAN classifies the case as B: probable observation of a Mylar balloon.