A vast amount of reported UFO sightings over nuclear power plants since October 2014 sparked a high alert status issued by the French government. The latest of the sightings happened just last week, and the most recent one in Belgium was reported in December. Majority of media outlets made drones as the suspect, but not all witnesses are convinced with this explanation. Authorities can’t identify the UFO, and if they are drones they don’t know who controlled them.

Austrian news site ORF.at reports that UFOs were observed flying above nuclear power plants in France on 18 separate occasions between October and November. The site adds that authorities suspect an unknown group has been coordinating to create the UFO sightings.

ORF.at also says the series of sightings have set off a debate over the safety of nuclear power plant facility. The French government has received denunciation from Greenpeace for alleged downplaying the danger of these unknown flights over nuclear power stations.

The latest UFO sighting took place on January 3, 2015 over the nuclear power plant in Nogent-Sur-Seine, southeast of Paris. Two security guards claimed to have seen two flying objects.

In Belgium, an unidentified flying object was seen over Doel nuclear power plant, around ten miles from Antwerp. According to Spiegel Online news site, the plant had been shutdown reportedly due to sabotage four months ago. No further details have been known.

The Independent, UK-based website, says that authorities arrested three young men in November in central France for attempting to fly drones over a nuclear plant. But their drones were later discovered to be mere toys, not similar to the sophisticated craft reported by the witnesses of several UFO sightings over power plant in France and Belgium.

The Independent explains that a campaign of harassment by anti-nuclear campaigners is considered as a possible explanation of these nuclear power station UFO sightings. Meanwhile, the news site notes that the French government remains on high alert.

Writer Robert Fleischer is skeptical about drone explanations after reading accounts from witnesses at forum-ovni-ufologie.com and interviewing witnesses of a UFO over nuclear plant in Golfech on October 30, 2014. He suspects there’s more to it than French authorities are willing to divulge.