An account in Haute-Saône, France

On November 14, 2016 at 6:14 PM, a motorist observed for about 10 seconds the movement of a white light in the sky. Having already seen shooting stars, he remained surprised by the fact that this one did not burn up and continued on its way toward the West. No other testimony was collected. The description provided corresponds perfectly to the observation of a small slow meteor coming from the East and crossing the sky in front of the witness in the direction of the West or Southwest. It is common for a shooting star not to be accompanied by a clearly perceptible luminous trail (or tail), especially when its brightness is modest and retinal persistence is thereby significantly reduced. In such cases, any colors and their possible variations are often difficult to perceive. At the time of the observation, the radiant of the Taurid meteor shower (South Taurids then North Taurids) (constellation Taurus), fairly close to the star Aldebaran, was at its rise, just at the East-Northeast horizon (azimuth 70°/N). Shooting stars from this shower (associated with comet 2P/Encke) are slow (~29km/s), which makes an observation duration of about ten seconds quite possible and therefore consistent with the testimony. This shower produces few shooting stars (<5/h) but extends from September 10 to December 10, with the observation occurring only two days from the maximum (November 12 for the North Taurids), so in a favorable period. It seems that this shower can also periodically produce bolides (fireballs). Due to its descriptive, temporal, and spatial characteristics, the collected observation therefore very likely corresponds to that of a meteor from this shower. Consequently, GEIPAN classifies this case as A: shooting star.