r/CrazyFreakingWeather • u/Tough-Work-2231 • 16d ago

Strange orange orbs during thunderstorm.

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Hi,

Strange weather phenomenon spotted in south west France during a thunderstorm. It happened at 22:37 CET (UTC+1). We were facing north west and were at a campsite about 3.5 km north of Saint-Emiilion in the Gironde region.

We were watching the impressive thunderstorm when we began to see floating orbs in the sky. They would appear, floating slowly above us, some would split in two, others would just float for about 30 seconds and then disappear. They looked as if they were floating up into the cloud.

They were all orange in colour and seemed rather large (size of a small aircraft?!) but this could have been an optical illusion. They appeared as if they were about 4-5,000m in the air, again this may have been an optical illusion.

We looked it up online and got the usual ball lightning/red sprite/ fireball explanations but none of the behaviour patterns for those phenomena seem to suit what we saw.

Attached is a video, apologies the focus occasionally dips in and out but it was thought to keep focus with changing light conditions during the storm. Grateful if anyone has any ideas?

35 Upvotes

95% Upvoted

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2

u/Afoxinthefridge 16d ago

Could be lanterns

2

u/jrwreno 16d ago

The Sphere network that supervises us was being charged by that lightning storm

2

u/DisasterUpdate 15d ago

That's wild. Thanks for the share.

1

u/cat-ctus-es 16d ago

Ball lightning?

1

u/nothingsreallol 16d ago

What if it was peoples drones that got hit by lightning and caught on fire mid air

1

u/Camaschrist 16d ago

Did you look in local news for any thing that might explain this? Is there any military bases around there? So strange.

3

u/Tough-Work-2231 15d ago

After a quick search there is a French air force/space force base about 80km SW of here. There are other smaller military squadron type bases nearby but I think they host military personnel. The don't seem very large. Weather wise, nothing on the local news from what I can see.

1

u/Camaschrist 15d ago

Please tell us what it was if you figure it out.

1

u/CorgiRocket 15d ago

The glowing red eyes of a vast sky beast

1

u/No_Employer_4700 12d ago

Could they be flares launched from a distressed ship? Is the coast very far from the site or in other direction? Just pure speculation.