Sighting in Fismes, February 24, 2017

At around 7:25 p.m., two witnesses, a driver and their child in the front passenger seat, were travelling in a car along a small country road lined with woods. The driver suddenly noticed a whitish ball on the right, moving in the same direction as the vehicle and parallel to its path. It then moved into position in front of the car, and its brightness seemed to fade. The witnesses watched this opaque ball for a minute and a half before it vanished instantly, leaving no trail. They noticed no particular sound.

The investigation concluded that the two accounts matched ball lightning, of the "globular lightning" type. This explanation fits very well with the phenomenon's visual appearance, its apparent trajectory and its altitude. Such events occur in stormy weather, though not necessarily with an active thunderstorm at the location. The testimonies were submitted to the Laboratoire de Recherche sur la Foudre (Lightning Research Laboratory), which unambiguously recognised a ball lightning phenomenon. GEIPAN therefore classified the case as A, identified.