Pilot witness in Meurthe-et-Moselle, France

On August 5, 2007, a very large hot air balloon event took place at the former Chambley-Bussières military base (54). Thousands of people attended this event and thousands of photos were taken. After the event, one of the participants noticed on one of his photos (around 190) a suspicious spot that seemed to be neither an aircraft, nor a bird, nor an artifact due to the camera. He contacted a private investigator, Mr. Christian Comtesse, and the GEIPAN was only informed through media coverage of this event under the name "the Chambley UFO". An observation case consisting of a single photograph showing an anomaly, with no visual observation at the time the photo was taken, makes any in-depth investigation difficult: the lack of precise information leads to many hypotheses but without the possibility of verifying them, and if there are not at least two independent sources of information, the observation case is a priori of little interest. Locally, Mr. Christian Comtesse, who had received a single photo, set out to try to find out more. He collected many other photos and the same spot is present on another photograph. In this specific case, one of the photos collected during Christian Comtesse's investigation is relatively rich in information (presence of many balloons at various distances). It served as support for a study of the photo analysis procedure entrusted to François Louange, a specialist in the field. The complete study of the photo is the subject of an appendix document (Louange photo analysis report), and the result is that it is an object with a size between 75 cm and 1 meter placed about 300 meters from the photographer. A plausible hypothesis is that of an escaped child's balloon. C. Comtesse's persistence would be rewarded since he would finally obtain, in March 2008, the testimony of the pilot of one of the hot air balloons, a visual witness of the object. It turns out to be precisely a child's balloon in the shape of a fish, about 80 cm in size. Christian Comtesse's report transmitted to the GEIPAN is published as an appendix document (Chambley UFO Investigation Report). This case, finally classified A, is exemplary in more than one way: -It demonstrates the value of collaboration between the GEIPAN and local investigators, a collaboration now set up by the GEIPAN with First-Level Interveners (IPN): indeed, without Christian Comtesse's collaboration, this case of a photograph without visual observation would not have been investigated in depth by the GEIPAN and would therefore, perhaps, have remained unexplained (and probably classified C). -It retrospectively validates the photo analysis method developed by François Louange on behalf of the GEIPAN.