Sighting in Bolide — (reg) Occitanie, September 7, 2014

At around 7 a.m., a large number of people in the south of France saw a luminous phenomenon cross the sky. Local newspapers ran several articles on it, and the GEIPAN received a number of witness reports.

The investigation found that the event had all the characteristics of a meteoroid entering the atmosphere; a meteoroid is a small rocky body orbiting the Sun. It took place above Spanish Catalonia, along a steeply inclined path of about 65°, between 60 and 25 km in altitude. Astronomers consider that this meteoroid was not on a trajectory close to that of asteroid 2014 RC, which passed within 40,000 km of Earth the same day. The two events are not connected.

The case was given the maximum consistency rating of 1, thanks to the many testimonies and to recordings made by several cameras. After analysis it was judged to be very little strange. The GEIPAN therefore classified it "A": the sightings were of a large fireball, the result of a meteoroid entering the atmosphere.