Sighting in Chauriat, December 6, 2019

At around 4:25 a.m., a witness saw a white-yellow light cross the starry sky at great speed, following a horizontal path from south to north. The phenomenon lasted only about two seconds. Only one account was collected, but it was fairly precise and complete, so the case was considered to have good consistency.

The investigation concluded that the witness had very probably seen a meteor: the very short duration, the rapid movement and the straight path are typical of this kind of event. The dedicated monitoring networks recorded no fireball at that time, but the brightness described, similar to that of the stars of the Big Dipper, was too modest for such a detection. The lack of a visible trail does not rule out the explanation: at an elevation of about 30° and with a horizontal path, the meteor was fairly distant and its light passed through a thicker layer of atmosphere than it would have near the zenith. Atmospheric scattering most likely made a very faint trail impossible to see. The case is classified A: observation of a meteor.