France, France · 2015-03-15 · from the GEIPAN archive
Pilot witness in France, France
On March 15, 2015 at around 8:45 PM, many people were able to observe the passage in the sky of a colored luminous phenomenon. GEIPAN received several testimonies, including one from a pilot. This phenomenon, observed by hundreds of people in the northeast of France and especially in Germany and Switzerland, is clearly a bolide. A BOLIDE is a phenomenon corresponding to the entry into the atmosphere of a "large" object (more than 100 g, and from a few centimeters to 1 meter in diameter). This produces a large trail of light capable of illuminating the landscape for several seconds. This bolide was also recorded by several cameras (see among others BOAM), which makes it possible to perfectly characterize its trajectory, and therefore, its natural origin: it is a meteoroid, a small rocky body that crossed Earth's orbit. The size of this body at entry is very difficult to determine, between 100 g and 10 kg. This bolide had the particularity of being observable for almost 10 seconds due to its relatively grazing trajectory. The trajectory of the bolide went from the north northeast to the south southeast, approximately vertical over Stuttgart to Zurich. GEIPAN received 5 testimonies from witnesses on the ground, and two testimonies from pilots in flight (see table and geographic maps). It will be noted that one of the pilots, flying north, says that the phenomenon "grazed" the aircraft, while it was more than 200 km away. This illusion of proximity is a constant in all bolide testimonies, it does not spare pilots; moreover, at high altitude, the atmospheric haze is nonexistent, making it all the more impossible to estimate the distance of a powerful unknown luminous phenomenon. An excellent analysis of all the observations of this event, compiled by the American Meteor Association, is available at: U-Sphere. GEIPAN classifies this case 'A': phenomenon perfectly identified as a bolide, caused by the fall of a natural meteoroid.
On October 21, 2015 at around 9:15 PM, a driver and his passenger observe for a few seconds three strong white lights, described as diffuse halos, stationary, a few dozen meters above the tr…
On May 31, 2015, around 12:50-12:55 AM, two witnesses (T1 driver, T2 passenger to his right) on duty in a van were in the town of Silly-Le-Long (60) and got onto the Nationale 2 expressway h…
In the night from Saturday to Sunday, May 17, 2015, at 12:45 a.m., a witness closing a window is surprised to observe 5 or 6 colored balls of light passing silently through the clear sky. Th…
On March 12, 2015 at 7:45 PM, a witness observes two lights, first stationary, then the first one takes a direction and disappears behind the buildings, soon followed by the second one, whic…
On November 13, 2015 at around 10:15 PM, two people in a car are intrigued by the low-altitude passage of a triangular object whose shape is outlined by three steady white round lights. Two …
On June 10, 2015 at around 12:20 AM, a person hears a deep sound coming from outside. From their terrace, the witness observes for about 3 minutes a flying craft emitting a noise resembling …
On March 14, 2014 at 7:30 PM, a motorist and his daughter observe through the windshield the very rapid movement of a luminous phenomenon in the cloudy sky. The phenomenon disappears behind …
the accounts read alike, found by meaning rather than by shared details
On Sunday, August 26, 2012 at 10:07 PM, a witness is intrigued by the rapid and silent passage of a white luminous phenomenon in the sky. Only one questionnaire is received, but other witnes…
the accounts read alike, found by meaning rather than by shared details
On July 9, 2015 at around 7 p.m., two witnesses in the Seine-et-Marne department (77) observed the rapid passage of a luminous phenomenon in the sky. The phenomenon is described as a luminou…
the accounts read alike, found by meaning rather than by shared details
Keep reading
There are thousands more like this in the record. Open one at random, or read the ones the most people recognise.
Or if something like this happened to you, write it down and we will look for the others who saw it too.
Know someone this happened to?
If this reminds you of something a friend or a relative told you once and never mentioned again, send them this page. Reading that a stranger described the same thing is usually the part that helps.
Nothing is tracked back to you and nothing is sent on your behalf. The link is just the page you are reading.
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