Dordogne, France · 2017-09-10 · from the GEIPAN archive
On September 10, 2017 at 10:26 PM, a witness on their terrace noticed a light at low altitude heading West. Very quickly, the witness saw that this light was heading in their direction and saw a triangular shape. They then hurried back inside to get binoculars. From their observation with this instrument, the witness described a triangular object, orange in color but with brighter ends tending toward white. The movement was silent on a straight West-East trajectory. The observation lasted about fifteen seconds before the witness lost sight of the object without being able to explain its sudden disappearance (possibly hidden by a cloud). No other testimony was collected. The witness probably observed a Thai lantern. Indeed, all its characteristics: - the orange color, - the direction of movement toward the East, consistent with the wind measured across all surrounding weather stations (unfortunately none have data available within less than 25 km — here the one at Gourdon, 25 km away, taken from Infoclimat — which always has a strong Eastward component at that hour), - the date, a Sunday evening in summer, favorable for festive events, are all elements supporting this hypothesis. The witness's objections to this hypothesis hardly hold up against GEIPAN's experience with lantern testimonies: - a lantern can be single, - the speed can be steady and sustained, it depends on the wind at flight altitude (100 to 300 m), - one does not always see the flames, and not better directly under the lantern because they can be hidden by the burner, - lanterns can have various shapes or sections, particularly in their upper part, including triangular, square, or even heart-shaped (see a commercial site), - the color of the lantern is not uniform, because the paper can have color variations, especially if the shape is irregular. Consequently, GEIPAN classifies the case as B: Thai lantern.
What stood out: a triangle shape
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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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