Sighting in Saint-Bonnet-du-Gard, January 17, 2014

A motorist driving toward Saint-Bonnet-du-Gard at about 7:05 pm was surprised to see a powerful light cross the sky for a few seconds. It came from a white ball followed by a trail. The witness heard no particular sound. They were the only person to report the event to GEIPAN, but the phenomenon was seen at the same moment across much of the eastern half of France, mostly in the North-East (Alsace, Lorraine, Vosges), by many witnesses and by at least four automatic cameras. All described a trajectory running from east to west. The witness saw the fireball toward the north-north-east, at a calculated elevation of 5° to 2° above the horizon, which matches the sketch they had drawn.

Recordings from the BOAM network cameras made it possible to characterise the fireball: a speed of 14 km/s, a duration of 6.1 s, a maximum magnitude of -7, a start at 87 km altitude and an end at 38 km, covering 115 km. As is often the case, witnesses thought it was very close, whereas such events occur between 100 and 30 or 40 km up. The duration and westward path are those of a meteoroid entering the atmosphere, a small stony body probably from the asteroid belt. GEIPAN classified the case as A. The object may have been large enough for a meteorite to reach the ground in western France.