An account in Gironde, France

On January 30, 2015, around 7 p.m., a motorist driving on the Bordeaux ring road near the town of Carbon-Blanc (33) is suddenly frightened because a very intense bluish light that "covers the entire environment in his field of vision" (see the witness's drawing). No particular noise is heard. Thinking it is the light from a flashing beacon, the driver tries to see an emergency vehicle in his rearview mirror, but he sees nothing of the sort. No information is given on the radio. The motorist continues on his way, dazed. No other testimony will be collected about this phenomenon. The violent and sudden illumination of the sky for 2 seconds can have two possible causes: a particularly violent lightning flash or a bolide (meteorite fall). Lightning strike records indicate that day there were strikes near the observation area, but only from 1 p.m. to 2 p.m. (see Météociel records 1 and 2). At Bordeaux-Mérignac, overcast weather and a light west wind of 4 to 15 km/h, not exactly compatible with the witness's account (rain and a lot of wind), are indicated by the Météociel record. The witness's account would lean more toward the first hypothesis, but it is not confirmed by the weather records; it nevertheless remains possible. No bolide was recorded by automatic cameras that day, but cloud cover was almost total over France at that time. GEIPAN classifies this case as "C" due to a lack of information allowing either hypothesis to be validated.