Sighting in Rentree Atmospherique, September 3, 1985

Four witnesses saw a bright phenomenon cross the sky quickly that same evening, two in Lyon and two in Villefranche-sur-Saône. It lasted a few seconds and moved at high speed, without a sound. The witnesses described a pale green or fluorescent green ball, like a flare, surrounded by a white or dark green halo. The near-identical sightings happened at the same time in distant places, and the trajectories reported were consistent.

In Lyon, two witnesses, a security guard and a truck driver, also noticed a yellowish-white glow in the water of a basin in the port, which lasted a few minutes. The driver compared it to a diver shining a light from underwater. Both estimated its size at about 30 m, while the security guard put the source of the glow at about the size of a football. The driver had not seen the object in the sky, and the guard did not see it fall into the water, but the trajectory the guard observed matched the location of the glow. Firefighters measured very slight radioactivity, both in and out of the water. The driver also reported that the sign on the security vehicle was flashing when they arrived.

The GEIPAN re-examined the case, originally classified D. It found that the description fits a meteoroid entering the atmosphere: short duration, high speed, glow with a halo, simultaneous sightings and consistent trajectories. The meteorite most likely fell into the water. The 30 m figure refers to the glow that rose to the surface, not to its source. The radioactivity was not investigated further, so it cannot be tied to the meteorite, though it would not rule out that hypothesis. As for the flashing, only one witness mentioned it in their statement, and they were on alert, a state in which a secondary anomaly can be noticed or linked to the main event. The case is classified B: probable meteoroid entry.