An account in France, France

On June 6, 1983 at around 11 p.m., many witnesses spread across the south of France from the Alps to the Pyrénées-Orientales observed a glow moving rapidly in the sky at the same time (11 p.m.) and over a short duration (most often less than 20 seconds and at most 1 or 2 minutes). 29 testimonies are reported. The shape is often described as elongated. The summary table (attached in the investigation materials) of observation locations and times is striking for its geographic extent and the correspondence in time. This supports a single phenomenon produced at high altitude (> 50 km) and giving visibility over a large area. This is a key characteristic of the well-known phenomenon of atmospheric re-entry of a meteoroid. This is reinforced by another key characteristic, which is the elongated glow and the short duration. A longer duration could also have led to considering the related hypothesis of the atmospheric re-entry of a spacecraft. Nowadays many sites record data collected on the ground (most often by automatic cameras) during such re-entries, so that testimonies sent to GEIPAN are resolved without any special investigation. The 2016 example with more than 20 recordings (attached in the IMO analysis supplement) illustrates the analogy with this old case of June 6, 1983 at 11 p.m. In the analysis supplement there is a selection of witness descriptions that clearly conveys the impression of rapid movement with an elongated shape. Consequently, GEIPAN classifies the case as B: probable observations of meteoroid re-entry.