ALSACAT-2011-09-20-MULHOUSE-1
On September 22, 2011, "Anthony" wrote a report to a UFO blog created by a Mulhouse resident who thought he saw UFOs on June 12, 2011 - they were actually Chinese lanterns.
"Anthony" says that on September 20, 2011, at about 11:30 p.m. in Mulhouse, with a friend, he had seen "a werd thing in the sky", "orange, brown" in color, that "went very fast and without any noise."
| Date: | September 20, 2011 |
|---|---|
| Time: | ~11:30 p.m. |
| Duration: | ? |
| First known report date: | September 22, 2011 |
| Reporting delay: | 2 days. |
| Department: | Haut-Rhin |
|---|---|
| City: | Mulhouse |
| Place: | ? |
| Latitude: | 47.747 |
| Longitude: | 7.335 |
| Uncertainty radius: | 2 km |
| Number of alleged witnesses: | 2 |
|---|---|
| Number of known witnesses: | 1 |
| Number of named witnesses: | 0 |
| Witness(es) ages: | ? |
| Witness(es) types: | ? |
| Reporting channel: | Message to a blog about UFOs in Mulhouse. |
|---|---|
| Type of location: | City, UFO in the sky. |
| Visibility conditions: | Night |
| UFO observed: | Yes |
| UFO arrival observed: | Yes |
| UFO departure observed: | Yes |
| Entities: | No |
| Photographs: | No. |
| Sketch(s) by witness(es): | No. |
| Sketch(es) approved by witness(es): | No. |
| Witness(es) feelings: | Puzzled. |
| Witnesses interpretation: | A weird thing. |
| Hynek: | NL |
|---|---|
| ALSACAT: | Probable Chinese lantern. |
[Ref. ome1:] "OVNI MULHOUSE" BLOG:
anthony on 09/22/2011
On 09/20//2011 at about 11:30 p.m. in mulhouse one friends and i saw a werd thing in the sky, of orange color, brown and went very fast without any noise.
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Chinese lanterns are regularly launched in Mulhouse and the suburb since 2008 - more rarely before. A few months later, from the "Place de la Réunion" in the center of the city, people celebrated Valentine's Day with Chinese lanterns. Here are images extracted from videos I've taken, using an iPhone 3S to get the "poor quality" result that people sometimes get filming these Chinese lanterns they sometimes interpret as "UFOs" with mobile phone cameras. On the left the lantern on the ground, on the Place de la Réunion, right, a lantern flies away.
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The first "false UFOs" caused by Chinese lanterns that I identified were in the United States during the airship wave of 1896-1897, it also happened during the 1954 French "saucers" flap, including in Alsace (Example), it happened during the wave of 1973 in the United States (Example), etc. As there are years-long gaps in their use, some ufologists, too many ufologists, and of course the witnesses, forget them as a possible cause for UFO sightings.
In the years 2005 to 2014 (when I write these lines - in Mulhouse and around Mulhouse, a dozen so-called "UFO sightings" occurred that were actually caused by Chinese lanterns, and on several occasions, the local press had first headlined about "UFOs" before correcting it the next day. Now, in 2013, 2014, newspapermen are starting to know what the Chinese lanterns are, and often give the explanation immediately.
Now what about this report? There is almost no information, except for the color and the silence, perfectly typical of a Chinese lantern.
Probable Chinese lantern.
* = Source is available to me.
? = Source I am told about but could not get so far. Help needed.
| Main author: | Patrick Gross |
|---|---|
| Contributors: | None |
| Reviewers: | None |
| Editor: | Patrick Gross |
| Version: | Create/changed by: | Date: | Description: |
|---|---|---|---|
| 0.1 | Patrick Gross | May 14, 2015 | Creation, [cu1]. |
| 1.0 | Patrick Gross | May 14, 2015 | First published. |
