An account in Tarn-et-Garonne, France

On September 9, 2011 at around 10:10 PM, several people in the same neighborhood of Montauban observed the rapid and silent passage from south to north of a luminous phenomenon in the sky. Two independent testimonies reached us: during the brief observation (from 5 to 30 seconds), the observed phenomenon appeared to have the shape of a "water drop" or a "white bean" moving rapidly and illuminating nothing outside of the object itself. No noise was heard during the observation of the object, whose size gradually shrank. This phenomenon, observed by two independent witnesses, reports a luminous object in flight moving from south to north over a duration of 7 to 30 seconds. The investigation was first directed at Thai lanterns, or in connection with the "Fête des 400 coups" festival that was taking place that day in Montauban. The two witnesses completely rejected these hypotheses. Additional analysis linked the observation to an atmospheric reentry of a meteoroid or satellite debris. GEIPAN classifies this case "B": probable observation of a bolide.