La Réunion, France · 2017-06-24 · from the GEIPAN archive
During an astrophotography session at Piton Maido on Reunion Island, a witness observes during his shots a particular luminous phenomenon. The witness describes the path of a shooting star that transforms into a cone of intense white light and ends in a spherical nebulosity whose trail takes several minutes to fade. The witness sends us his photographs. Only one testimony is collected. The witness observed the passage and then the passivation of the last stage of the Falcon 9 launcher launched on June 23, 2017 (see the video concerning this launch here). The launch took place at 19:10 (UT) in Florida, i.e. 23:10 local time in Reunion. The launcher heads East along the equator and one hour later, at the time of the observation in Reunion, it is already at 8,000 or 10,000 km altitude, lit by the sun and therefore visible from a wide area on the ground and in particular due East of Reunion. The witness's photographic recording, reconstructed in the sky based on the photographed stars (see the reconstruction map), shows the trajectory oriented due East, linear, and descending toward the horizon since the launcher will soon pass behind the Earth (seen from Reunion). The cone of light in the photo corresponds to a gas ejection from the launcher's passivation (draining of the tanks) with a growing volume of gas (translated as a cone in the photo due to the 40-second exposure time). The disappearance of the launcher's reflection probably comes from its rotation (natural or performed at the same time as the passivation) changing the mirror effect of the sun. The phenomenon is known and has been the subject of several testimonies, including one from Reunion in a similar geometry (it was an Ariane launch from Kourou: see the case ENTRE-DEUX (974) 21.08.2015 on the GEIPAN website). See also the article from Ciel des Hommes: Luminous halo in the sky of the Indian Ocean on September 29, 2013. The elements and the precedents allow us to classify this case as an observation of "Rocket" without having to commit more GEIPAN investigation resources (in particular for the fine reconstruction of the position in the sky of Falcon 9 seen from the witness). GEIPAN classifies the case as A: rocket.
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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