An account in Loiret, France

On Monday, April 13, 2015 at around 10:45 a.m., a person sitting on a café terrace with friends observes the silent passage of a very bright object in the clear sky. Only one testimony is collected. A bright object in the sunlight, metallic in appearance, pivoting, crossing part of the sky in less than a minute suggests a mylar balloon (metallized fairground balloon) that escaped from its owner's hands. Since the witness did not identify the object, he cannot correctly estimate its distance or size; as often happens, there is an overestimation of these elements: an object 50 cm in size seen at 100 meters looks strictly the same to the observer as an object of the same shape 5 meters long seen at 1000 meters. The witness looks in the direction of S/SW (Azimuth 220°) and notes a movement from his left to his right: the object could fly from SE to NW, but also from East to West. The moving away would not be noticeable over such a short observation. The Météociel report for Orléans indicates a variable wind from NE to East (see the Météociel report. Although not really in the SE -> NW axis perceived by the witness, an East or even NE wind could push a balloon from the left to the right of the observer. The end of the observation (spiral descent) could correspond to the balloon deflating due to overpressure, caused by altitude. GEIPAN classifies this case "B": probable observation of a mylar balloon.