Sighting in Bons-en-Chablais, September 16, 2012

At 8:24 in the evening, a witness standing on their balcony noticed a white point of light moving silently across the sky. It followed an east-to-west path and vanished behind the Jura mountains. The sighting lasted only 4 seconds, and the witness heard no sound at all while it lasted. No other testimony about the phenomenon was ever collected.

GEIPAN rated the case as moderately strange and of good consistency: there was a single witness, but their account was very precise. The investigation concluded that the witness may have mistaken a natural atmospheric entry, that is, a fireball (also called a meteor). The description fits a fireball very well, but without a second witness the case could not be formally explained. The witness's visual perception is not in question; what is in question is how they interpreted what they saw, based on their impression of a brief observation in a twilight sky. The case was classified B: probable sighting of a fireball.