Sighting in Le Chesnay, April 5, 1980

At about 10:45 p.m., a witness saw a very bright white ball climb silently through the night sky in jerks, leaving a white trail behind it. The object then shot off horizontally at very high speed and disappeared. Intrigued, the witness talked about it with people around them. Another person said they had seen a similar phenomenon moving across the sky in Paris a little earlier. Both witnesses were interviewed by the gendarmerie, and two separate case files were opened.

GEIPAN re-examined the case, which had first been classed D. It concluded that the two phenomena were probably two meteoroid entries, seen about an hour apart over the Paris region and following different paths. The elements it relied on were the spherical shape, the white color, the brightness, the presence of a trail and an observation lasting only a few seconds. The jerky motion was probably caused by variations in the fireball's brightness. The apparent "right-angle" trajectory needed to be put in perspective: the witness's directional references were imprecise and consistent with a curved path, which is rare but does occur with fireballs. A perspective effect was also very likely. GEIPAN also noted a strong likelihood of contamination between the two accounts, since the witnesses had talked before giving their statements. The Le Chesnay case was classed B (probable meteoroid entry), and the Paris case was classed A.