Unexplained luminous ball in Premesques (1963)

Summary

A father and his two sons were walking along a rural path in Premesques, northern France, in November 1963 when they saw an orange luminous ball hanging motionless beneath dark clouds. It stayed still for over a minute, then began spinning, swayed side to side, and shot upward into the clouds along a straight-then-curved path. There was no sound or trail.

The testimony did not reach GEIPAN until 2008, when one of the sons — an 18-year-old student at the time of the sighting — reconstructed the details between 2003 and 2007. Ball plasma was considered but ruled out: there was no storm, and the characteristics did not match known ball lightning. GEIPAN classified the case as D — an unexplained phenomenon with a notable degree of strangeness.