- I have more informations on the case of Voreppe which
confirm, apparently, that it was a balloon.
-
- This is the case, revealed last week on Friday, September
11, of the observation of a supposed UFO in a garden of the small city
of Voreppe, near Grenoble in the Alps, which was made on Sunday, September
6, around 8 pm. This case was widely reported (see, for instance, UFO ROUNDUP
of September 14, page 1). It looked very promising, with a video recording,
and with allegedly burned leaves of a tree taken for analysis by two specialists
of CNES/SEPRA (Centre national d'Etudes Spatiales/ Service d'Expertise
des Phénomènes de Rentrées Atmosphériques).
However, on Saturday morning, September 12, the CNES put an abrupt end
to the story by revealing that it had just been a misperception (not a
hoax) of a child's balloon.
-
- This information has been confirmed to me, convincigly,
by Jean-Jacques Velasco, the head of SEPRA. What happened is a family of
Voreppe informed the police that their son had dropped a balloon which
was fairly large (nearly one meter) and in the shape of a ladybug. There
was very little wind, Velasco explained to me, and it drifted, first loosing
altitude, hovered for a moment above the garden, and drifted away. The
night was falling and the witnesses were mistaken about its size. When
they shot the video, the balloon was already at some distance and hard
to identify.
-
- This information has been confirmed to me confidentially,
from another source according to which a string could be seen on the video,
floatting under the balloon, and a woman's voice could be heard saying
"It looks like a ladybug" (coccinelle in French) !
-
- Still, it is curious that it took nearly a week to realize
such a mistake!
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