Vaucluse, France · 1978-01-15 · from the GEIPAN archive
Recent testimony (2011) about an old sighting made on January 15, 1978 between 6:45 PM and 7:10 PM. The witnesses, in a car on the D177 between Venasque and Gordes, will make several successive observations of silent luminous phenomena they cannot explain and will be very impressed by what they saw. The first observation matches the planet Jupiter, due east (see star chart). The testimony then matches the characteristics of Thai lanterns: group of luminous points, moving in the direction of the wind (from the southwest), and lasting a few minutes. Note however that the witness reports white and red lights: even white lanterns give off a rather yellow-orange light. (Very widely used in Thailand for festivals for centuries, these lanterns have been very common in France since the 2000s, but were rare at that time in France, used by Asians and tourists returning from Asia.) It was not verified that the movement of the lanterns was consistent with the wind (archives unavailable on the web). The other observations remain strange, but may be confusions with the Moon (half moon due south), vehicles on the road, following the emotion of the second observation. But this does not explain everything. This case is classified "C": lack of information to conclude, but one of the observations matches Thai lanterns.
What stood out: an orange orbred lights
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the accounts read alike, found by meaning rather than by shared details
On November 26, 2011 at 9:05 PM, a witness observed for five minutes the silent movement of four glowing balls. The testimony matches the characteristics of Thai lanterns: points of light in…
the accounts read alike, found by meaning rather than by shared details
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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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