Sighting in Rentree Atmospherique — National, April 9, 2015

Shortly after 7:10 a.m., a bright phenomenon was seen at the same moment by many witnesses spread across south-western and western France, from the Ariège to the Finistère. Witnesses in the Spanish Pyrenees also reported it. A summary table brings together the testimonies collected. Press articles, specialist websites and an online video also covered the event.

GEIPAN identified the phenomenon as a bolide, a very bright, fast-moving object crossing the sky. Most witnesses were seeing this kind of event for the first time and, because of its intense brightness, thought it was very close, a few kilometres away or less. In reality, such a phenomenon occurs between 80 and 20 km in altitude, which is why people several hundred kilometres apart could see it simultaneously.

Based on the trajectories the witnesses described, the bolide most likely occurred above the Atlantic Ocean, roughly a hundred kilometres off the coast (a rough estimate). It was the atmospheric re-entry of a meteoroid, whose fragments, a few millimetres to a few centimetres in size, most probably fell into the ocean. GEIPAN classified the case A: identified phenomenon.