Gard, France · 2014-01-17 · from the GEIPAN archive
On January 17, 2014 at 7:05 PM, a motorist on the D 6036 heading toward Saint-Bonnet-du-Gard (30) is surprised to see, for a few seconds, the passage in the sky of a powerful light coming from a white ball followed by a trail. No particular noise is heard. No other testimony will be reported to GEIPAN. This very luminous phenomenon was observed simultaneously over a large part of the eastern half of France, especially in the Northeast (Alsace, Lorraine, Vosges) by many witnesses and at least 4 automatic cameras located at Chaligny, Bollwiller, Val d'Ajol, and the Paris Observatory (see attachments). The trajectory from East to West is well described by all witnesses. As often happens, witnesses have the impression of a very close phenomenon, whereas these fireballs occur at altitudes of 100 to 40 or 30 km. The characteristics of this fireball (duration, westward trajectory) are those of the atmospheric re-entry of a meteoroid, a small rocky body, probably originating from the asteroid belt. The parameters recorded by the BOAM network cameras in northeastern France made it possible to establish the following characteristics of the fireball: AllSkyCamFrance "The 'unified' trajectory given by the UFOorbit software resembles the northernmost one (from Verdun to Reims): Vg (velocity): 14 km/s, duration: 6.1 s, maximum magnitude (from Chaligny): -7, absolute magnitude: -5.5, start > altitude: 87 km, latitude: 49.08°N, longitude: 5.49°E; end > altitude: 38 km, latitude: 49.20°N, longitude: 4.09°E, inclination: 25°, distance traveled: 115 km." The fireball appeared to the witness in the N-NE direction, at an elevation (above the horizon) calculated to be on the order of 5° to 2° (taking into account the roundness of the Earth), which corresponds well to the diagram produced by the witness. GEIPAN classifies this case "A": observation of the atmospheric re-entry of a meteoroid. This object may have been large enough to produce a meteorite on the ground in western France.
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This is an official case file of GEIPAN, the French space agency's unidentified aerospace phenomena office, machine translated from French. The original text and the full investigation file are at geipan.fr. We reproduce it with thanks and remove anything on request.
Anomaly