An account in Charente, France

On October 31, 1983 at around 6:45 p.m., a witness, alerted by the unusual barking of his dog, saw through the window, in thick fog and despite the night, an intense light "as big as a tractor wheel" that moved slowly and disappeared very quickly behind a row of poplars located at the edge of the river. The next morning, following the witness's directional indications, a 25-meter poplar was found broken at a height of 8 meters: the upper part was found on the ground among the wild vegetation, and the break presented itself in two distinct ways. The tree showed a first clean break up to the center of the trunk, followed by a tear in the wood over about two meters. The results of the analyses show that the tree was probably attacked for a long time by fungi that progressively degraded it without the exterior appearance of the tree being modified. When the degradation reached the middle of the tree, its balance was compromised and the tree could fall under the effect of minimal pressure. This phenomenon was reinforced by the effect of prevailing winds, which caused a general fatigue effect on the plant located between 4 and 5 meters in height, thus facilitating the appearance of destructive fungi. The brownish area and the layer of scar bark found at the point of rupture are consistent with this hypothesis. Regarding the bright light, one of the consulted laboratories offers an explanation. There are indeed in nature many species of luminescent organisms, and among them many fungi. These organisms can emit intense lights capable of lighting a room or of navigating in the dark. The hypothesis put forward is that the trunk of the tree, colonized by this type of organism, may have, at the moment of its rupture, exposed these organisms, which produced a significant glow for a certain time, a glow that the witness could see without being able to interpret it.