Sighting in Aucamville, December 10, 2014

In the early morning, a witness saw several green rays of light, followed by a massive object at the centre of the Moon, which looked fairly large that morning. The phenomenon was oval and elongated. Frightened, the witness stopped watching and could not say how long it had lasted. No other testimony was collected.

What made the case strange was the beams and the oval described in front of the Moon during the different phases of the sighting. These features strongly suggest both the peak of a meteor shower and a persistent meteor trail crossing in front of the Moon. The radiant of the Geminids, a particularly active shower then close to its peak, was near the Moon, which fits this explanation well. The elongated oval also recalls a rare and debated astronomical phenomenon, a transient lunar phenomenon, but a persistent trail in front of the Moon was judged the most likely explanation.

The analysis concluded that the whole observation probably related to a brief peak in Geminid activity. Because the strangeness and consistency were low (single witness, no photo, lack of detail), GEIPAN classified the case as B: probable misidentification of phenomena linked to a meteor shower (meteors, persistent trail).