Sighting in Crégy-lès-Meaux, November 25, 2021

It was early morning and still dark when the witness, out jogging along the Ourcq canal near Meaux, heard an odd noise and looked up. They thought they saw an aircraft with unusual lights that looked like flames. They could see the light but not really the object itself. Behind it ran a short trail of smoke, about 1 cm wide as it appeared to them, which zigzagged slightly. After about four seconds the object caught fire, on what seemed to the witness to be its left side. There was no sound of an explosion, and the object carried on in a straight line.

Around 7:30 a.m., at the end of the run, the witness looked east from the beach at Meaux in the parc du Pâtis and saw a trail of smoke in the sky. Only one account was collected, and there were no photos. GEIPAN rated it as moderately consistent, though the witness had answered the investigator's questions precisely.

GEIPAN established that a bolide (a fireball) was observed and reported that same day at 6:36:12 a.m. local time. Its trajectory matched the account perfectly in overall description, viewing directions, direction of travel and duration. The flame-like lights, the burst of fire and the smoke trail are all explained by a bolide. The faint noise that had caught the witness's attention could have come from the surroundings, for example from one of two railway lines located 1.5 and 3.3 km away. The case was classified A: observation of a bolide.