Loire-Atlantique, France · 2011-04-16 · from the GEIPAN archive
On April 16, 2011 at around 2:20 a.m., a motorist and his passenger were intrigued by the horizontal movement of about ten glowing orange balls. These moved silently from the northeast to the southwest before gradually disappearing. The witnesses' account (orange lights moving, going out after a few minutes) and the wind direction (from the NE) are in every way consistent with the observation of Thai lanterns. The day and time (late evening on a weekend) are also typical for a lantern release at the end of a party. This case is classified "B": probable observation of Thai lanterns.
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This is an official case file of GEIPAN, the French space agency's unidentified aerospace phenomena office, machine translated from French. The original text and the full investigation file are at geipan.fr. We reproduce it with thanks and remove anything on request.
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