An account in Seine-Maritime, France

On May 30, 2015 at around 2 p.m., a witness was watching parachute drop planes flying in the sky when he spotted an object, between two of these planes, descending in zigzags with jerky, rapid movements. The object moved away at a phenomenal speed. GEIPAN contacted the "Abeille Parachutisme" club in Honfleur, which confirmed repeated rotations that day to release parachutists; a club official stated that "During these rotations, objects sometimes escape from the drop planes, and these objects never follow a direct trajectory, but rather arabesques linked to air currents." Indeed, an object released from a plane in flight has the plane's own speed; it is then subject to: - gravity, which makes it fall, - aerodynamic forces, which slow it down and make it spin, - the prevailing wind, which pushes it in its own direction, - and any local air currents, sometimes updrafts. The sum of these forces can explain the observed trajectory, which is quite chaotic because the object in question is certainly very low density. The shape described by the witness (flat, rectangular) could be that of a cardboard sheet. GEIPAN classifies this case as B: probable observation of an object fallen from a parachute drop plane.