Within Friuli UFO Files
Were Lake Burida's Lights Chinese Lanterns?
The Lake Burida sighting is memorable because three lights moved together, yet Chinese lanterns remain a plausible unproven explanation.
On this page
- The three object sighting over Pordenone
- Why lanterns fit several reported features
- The missing wind and launch data
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Introduction
The three orange lights seen near Lake Burida on 20 April 2011 are best understood as a probable Chinese-lantern incident rather than evidence of an unusual aircraft. At about 9.15 pm, witnesses reported three amber or red-orange circular objects moving together over the Pordenone area at a steady speed. The sighting entered the Italian Air Force’s UFO records because routine checks found no match with known flying or weather-balloon activity.[Aeronautica Militare]aeronautica.difesa.itAeronautica Militare OVNIAeronautica MilitareOVNI - Aeronautica Militare - Ministero della DifesaSegnalazioni O.V.N.I., Oggetti Volanti Non Identificati. In quest…
What makes the case unusually useful is what happened afterwards. A local resident said that three paper lanterns had travelled from the direction of Lake Burida; one reportedly landed, still smouldering, on his terrace and another on a nearby roof. That is much stronger evidence for an ordinary explanation than resemblance alone. However, no publicly available investigation appears to have matched the recovered object to a documented launch, reconstructed the wind at the relevant time or formally reconciled the lantern account with the military file. The case is therefore plausibly explained, but not proven in the strictest sense.[Blitzquotidiano.it]archivio.blitzquotidiano.itit Pordenone, i tre ufo avvistati erano delle lanterne cinesi: mistero risolto?27, 2011 — PORDENONE – Le tre sfere luminose che fluttuavano verso i palazzi di via della Ferriera a Pordenone erano in realtà delle mong…
The three-object sighting over Pordenone
The incident occurred above or close to Lake Burida, an artificial lake on the edge of Pordenone and Porcia. Contemporary summaries place the observation at approximately 9.15 pm on Wednesday 20 April 2011. Witnesses described three circular lights, amber-orange or red-amber in colour, moving from north-west to south-east at a constant speed.[messaggeroveneto.it]messaggeroveneto.itMessaggero Veneto Desecretati i faldoni sugli Ufo | Messaggero VenetoIl 20 aprile, in zona Burida a Pordenone, vengono segnalati tre oggetti circolari, colore arancio-ambra, in movimento a velocità costante…
Published accounts disagree slightly about the estimated altitude. A later summary in Messaggero Veneto gives about 300 metres, while Il Friuli and another regional account give roughly 400 metres. Such differences are not surprising in a night-time observation without a known object size or measured distance. A light that is actually small and nearby can appear much like a larger object farther away, making height and speed estimates highly uncertain.[messaggeroveneto.it]messaggeroveneto.itMessaggero Veneto Desecretati i faldoni sugli Ufo | Messaggero VenetoIl 20 aprile, in zona Burida a Pordenone, vengono segnalati tre oggetti circolari, colore arancio-ambra, in movimento a velocità costante…
The sighting attracted attention because the objects appeared as a group rather than as a single ambiguous point of light. Reports of three evenly moving lights can encourage observers to imagine a coordinated formation or one dark craft with illuminated corners. In the Lake Burida accounts, however, the witnesses appear to have described three separate circular objects, not a visible solid structure joining them.
The authorities were alerted, and the event subsequently appeared among the cases examined by the Italian Air Force. The service’s published procedure is designed principally to identify possible implications for flight safety and national security. Investigators compare reports with known aircraft movements, weather-balloon launches and other technical or natural causes. When those checks produce no identification, the event may remain recorded as an unidentified flying object. That classification does not establish exotic technology; it means only that the available official checks did not yield a confirmed explanation.[Aeronautica Militare]aeronautica.difesa.itAeronautica Militare OVNIAeronautica MilitareOVNI - Aeronautica Militare - Ministero della DifesaSegnalazioni O.V.N.I., Oggetti Volanti Non Identificati. In quest…
For Lake Burida, regional reporting states that the Air Force found no association with normal flight activity. There is no publicly reported radar track, pilot observation, instrument measurement or high-quality photographic evidence. The official record is therefore important as confirmation that a report was made and checked, but it adds little independent information about the physical nature of the lights.[ilfriuli.it]ilfriuli.itdischi volanti 5 casi nel mirino dellaeronauticaIn questo caso, escluse le lanterne cinesi, visto che la velocità stimata dell’oggetto fu di oltre mille chilometri all’ora…
Why lanterns fit the reported features
Chinese lanterns are lightweight paper envelopes lifted by heated air from a small flame. Seen from a distance at night, the envelope may disappear against the dark sky while the flame appears as a steady orange, amber or reddish globe. Several launched at roughly the same time can drift together in a loose formation, maintaining similar speeds and directions because they are carried by the same air flow.
That mechanism matches much of the Lake Burida description:
- Colour: the reported amber-orange or red-amber glow is characteristic of a flame shining through thin paper.
- Number: three lanterns launched together would naturally produce three lights following broadly similar paths.
- Steady motion: windborne lanterns generally drift rather than accelerate sharply, fitting the reported constant speed.
- Apparent silence: small lanterns at a distance produce no engine sound.
- Circular appearance: at night, an unresolved flame or illuminated paper envelope can look like a round luminous object.
- Low apparent altitude: the estimates of 300 or 400 metres fall within the sort of height observers might attribute to drifting lanterns, although those figures were not instrumentally measured.[blitzquotidiano.it]archivio.blitzquotidiano.itit Pordenone, i tre ufo avvistati erano delle lanterne cinesi: mistero risolto?27, 2011 — PORDENONE – Le tre sfere luminose che fluttuavano verso i palazzi di via della Ferriera a Pordenone erano in realtà delle mong…
The strongest part of the lantern case came several days after the sighting. Sergio Bon, a resident near Via della Ferriera, told reporters that the lights had approached from the direction of Lake Burida and were paper hot-air lanterns. According to his account, one descended onto his terrace while another landed on the roof of the building opposite; the third was lost from view.[Blitzquotidiano.it]archivio.blitzquotidiano.itit Pordenone, i tre ufo avvistati erano delle lanterne cinesi: mistero risolto?27, 2011 — PORDENONE – Le tre sfere luminose che fluttuavano verso i palazzi di via della Ferriera a Pordenone erano in realtà delle mong…
Bon reportedly retained the remains of the object that reached his terrace. It was described as thin white paper attached to a very light wooden ring, with fine metal wires crossing beneath it and blackening around the flame assembly. He also said that it had been smoking when it landed. Those details are not merely compatible with a lantern: they describe the ordinary construction and recent operation of one.[Blitzquotidiano.it]archivio.blitzquotidiano.itit Pordenone, i tre ufo avvistati erano delle lanterne cinesi: mistero risolto?27, 2011 — PORDENONE – Le tre sfere luminose che fluttuavano verso i palazzi di via della Ferriera a Pordenone erano in realtà delle mong…
The correspondence is unusually close. The number of recovered or tracked lanterns was said to be three, matching the number of lights. Their reported direction of arrival was associated with Lake Burida, matching the area named in the original sighting. At least two descended in the neighbourhood towards which the lights were seen moving. This creates a coherent sequence from lights in the sky to physical objects on buildings below.
For that reason, the lantern explanation is considerably stronger than a generic suggestion made after the event. In many UFO cases, “perhaps a lantern” is based only on colour and slow movement. Here, a nearby resident claimed to possess the remains of one and described the fate of a second.
Why the explanation was never fully closed
Despite the apparent strength of the later account, the public record leaves several evidential gaps. The most important is the absence of a documented launch. No named person or group appears to have confirmed releasing three lanterns near Lake Burida that evening. The available reporting does not identify a celebration, gathering or other event connected with their use.
There is also no publicly accessible chain of custody for the recovered material. The object was shown to journalists and described as a lantern, but there is no indication that police, Air Force personnel or an independent investigator formally collected and examined it. Nor is there a published serial marking, purchase record or laboratory report linking it to the objects seen at 9.15 pm.[Blitzquotidiano.it]archivio.blitzquotidiano.itit Pordenone, i tre ufo avvistati erano delle lanterne cinesi: mistero risolto?27, 2011 — PORDENONE – Le tre sfere luminose che fluttuavano verso i palazzi di via della Ferriera a Pordenone erano in realtà delle mong…
The timing is suggestive but imprecise. The reports do not state exactly when the lantern landed relative to the sighting, how far the terrace was from each witness, or whether observers continuously followed one of the lights until it descended. Without that uninterrupted visual link, the recovered lantern could theoretically have been a separate object released elsewhere that night.
Wind data are the most important missing technical test. The UFO summary gives a north-west-to-south-east course, while the resident said the lanterns arrived from the direction of the lake. A useful investigation would have compared those statements with surface and low-level winds around Pordenone at 9.15 pm. Public weather archives exist, but easily accessible reports do not provide the necessary local, hour-by-hour wind profile for the case.[3BMeteo | Previsioni Meteo]3bmeteo.comOpen source on 3bmeteo.com.
This matters because lanterns cannot choose their route. Their horizontal motion should broadly follow the air mass carrying them, although winds can vary with height and around buildings. If reliable observations and meteorological records had shown winds blowing strongly against the reported direction, the lantern hypothesis would have been weakened. If the winds matched, it would have become still more convincing.
The published altitude figures also deserve caution. Estimates of 300 and 400 metres appear in different summaries, but no triangulation or range measurement is reported. An observer cannot reliably calculate the height of an isolated light without knowing its true size. The numbers should therefore be treated as impressions supplied in a witness report, not as precise flight data.[Messaggero Veneto]messaggeroveneto.itMessaggero Veneto Desecretati i faldoni sugli Ufo | Messaggero VenetoIl 20 aprile, in zona Burida a Pordenone, vengono segnalati tre oggetti circolari, colore arancio-ambra, in movimento a velocità costante…
Why the Air Force record did not settle the case
It may seem contradictory that newspapers presented physical lantern remains while the sighting continued to appear in accounts of Air Force UFO files. The contradiction is largely administrative.
The Italian Air Force explains that an event is classified as unidentified when its checks do not establish a technical or natural cause. Its role is focused on flight and national security, not necessarily on conducting an open-ended forensic investigation of every civilian report.[Aeronautica Militare]aeronautica.difesa.itAeronautica Militare OVNIAeronautica MilitareOVNI - Aeronautica Militare - Ministero della DifesaSegnalazioni O.V.N.I., Oggetti Volanti Non Identificati. In quest…
Regional accounts say that officials could not associate the Lake Burida lights with known flying activity. That finding rules out, or at least fails to support, an identified aircraft explanation. It does not by itself rule out privately released lanterns. Small paper lanterns would not normally appear on an aviation schedule, carry a transponder or be registered as a weather-balloon launch.
The chronology may also explain the different outcomes. The official inquiry began from the original report of unidentified lights. The resident’s lantern account emerged in subsequent press coverage. The available sources do not show whether his evidence was formally passed to the Air Force, assessed by the same investigators or added to the final record.[Blitzquotidiano.it]archivio.blitzquotidiano.itit Pordenone, i tre ufo avvistati erano delle lanterne cinesi: mistero risolto?27, 2011 — PORDENONE – Le tre sfere luminose che fluttuavano verso i palazzi di via della Ferriera a Pordenone erano in realtà delle mong…
This distinction is central to interpreting official UFO archives. An “unidentified” entry can coexist with a convincing later explanation when the relevant evidence was outside the scope of the original checks, arrived after the file was compiled or was never formally incorporated. Official non-identification is not the same as proof that all ordinary causes were eliminated.
Did later reporting strengthen or weaken the claim?
Later coverage weakened the idea that the lights represented a genuinely unknown craft. The early story involved three unusual lights, uncertain altitude estimates and no immediately recognised source. The later story introduced a specific mechanism, a witness who said he saw where the objects went, and remains matching the expected construction of a paper lantern.
The lantern account explains the case without requiring several unrelated coincidences. It accounts for the lights’ colour, number, silence, constant movement and eventual descent. Most importantly, it offers a physical object of the correct type in the area towards which the lights reportedly travelled.[Blitzquotidiano.it]archivio.blitzquotidiano.itit Pordenone, i tre ufo avvistati erano delle lanterne cinesi: mistero risolto?27, 2011 — PORDENONE – Le tre sfere luminose che fluttuavano verso i palazzi di via della Ferriera a Pordenone erano in realtà delle mong…
Nevertheless, describing the case as conclusively debunked would go beyond the surviving documentation. The strongest evidence rests on one resident’s account as reproduced by news outlets. There is no published meteorological reconstruction, launch confirmation, formal examination of the debris or detailed comparison of witness positions and sight lines.
The most defensible assessment is therefore probable Chinese lanterns, with incomplete verification. The case is not strongly unresolved in the sense of resisting conventional explanation. Nor is it documented well enough to be called a laboratory-grade identification. It occupies the middle ground between a merely speculative explanation and a formally closed investigation.
Its place in Friuli-Venezia Giulia’s UFO history
Lake Burida’s three lights matter within Friuli-Venezia Giulia because they illustrate how the region’s official and popular UFO histories can diverge. In the Air Force-derived lists, the event appears alongside other unexplained regional observations from the 2010–12 period. In local reporting, however, it became one of the clearest examples of an apparently strange formation receiving a mundane explanation after witnesses came forward.[messaggeroveneto.it]messaggeroveneto.itMessaggero Veneto Desecretati i faldoni sugli Ufo | Messaggero VenetoIl 20 aprile, in zona Burida a Pordenone, vengono segnalati tre oggetti circolari, colore arancio-ambra, in movimento a velocità costante…
It also provides a useful contrast with the faster red-orange object reported over Pinzano al Tagliamento and Pordenone one month later. That later observation was described as travelling at very high estimated speed, making lanterns a poorer fit if the speed estimate was even approximately correct. The Lake Burida lights, by contrast, moved steadily and together—the behaviour expected from objects sharing the same wind.[ilfriuli.it]ilfriuli.itdischi volanti 5 casi nel mirino dellaeronauticaIn questo caso, escluse le lanterne cinesi, visto che la velocità stimata dell’oggetto fu di oltre mille chilometri all’ora…
The episode therefore cautions against treating a regional cluster as evidence that every report had the same cause. Similar colours do not guarantee similar objects. One orange light may be an aircraft, another a lantern, another an astronomical source, and another may remain unidentified because the available information is inadequate.
Lake Burida is memorable not because it provides strong evidence of extraordinary technology, but because it shows how quickly ordinary airborne lights can acquire a UFO identity—and how later physical evidence can substantially change the assessment without necessarily changing the wording of an official archive.
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Endnotes
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Source: ilfriuli.it
Title: dischi volanti 5 casi nel mirino dellaeronautica
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In questo caso, escluse le lanterne cinesi, visto che la velocità stimata dell’oggetto fu di oltre mille chilometri all’ora...
2.
Source: archivio.blitzquotidiano.it
Title: it Pordenone, i tre ufo avvistati erano delle lanterne cinesi: mistero risolto?
Link:https://archivio.blitzquotidiano.it/video/pordenone-ufo-lanterne-cinesi-836108/
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27, 2011 — PORDENONE – Le tre sfere luminose che fluttuavano verso i palazzi di via della Ferriera a Pordenone erano in realtà delle mong...
3.
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Source: comune.pordenone.it
Title: La Fortajada
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6.
Source: comune.pordenone.it
Title: LIGH T CHRISTMAS – Workshop
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7.
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8.
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9.
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10.
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11.
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19.
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Title: Aeronautica Militare OVNI
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23.
Source: messaggeroveneto.it
Title: Messaggero Veneto Desecretati i faldoni sugli Ufo | Messaggero Veneto
Link:https://www.messaggeroveneto.it/cronaca/desecretati-i-faldoni-sugli-ufo-udoylqal
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Il 20 aprile, in zona Burida a Pordenone, vengono segnalati tre oggetti circolari, colore arancio-ambra, in movimento a velocità costante...
24.
Source: aeronautica.difesa.it
Link:https://www.aeronautica.difesa.it/en/2023/01/12/ovni/
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Aeronautica MilitareOVNI12 Jan 2023 — This activity aims to ensure flight and national security. Once the investigations are concluded, t...
25.
Source: messaggeroveneto.it
Title: Economia, balli e fuochi d’artificio in Fiera | Messaggero Veneto
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Title: Strani avvistamenti in cielo segnalati da viale Marconi | Messaggero Veneto
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Additional References
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Altro episodio, il 20 aprile 2011 alle 21.15, quando sui cieli di Pordenone, sopra il lago della Burida, comparvero tre oggetti circolari...
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Title: gli avvistamenti tra il 2010 e il 2013 14789
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Pentagon Releases First Batch of UFO Sighting Reports...
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