Sighting in Saint-Germain-sur-Ille, July 17, 2013

At around 11:45 p.m., a witness saw a fireball followed by a trail pass across the sky. It followed an oblique, descending path in the east, moving from north to south. The event lasted two to three seconds. The witness also noticed an undulation in its movement.

No automatic camera recorded it. However, GEIPAN received another similar account, with a stated time very close to the first, from a location in the Yvelines département (78). There, the object was seen in the south-west/west, descending toward the horizon from about 60° elevation to 45°.

GEIPAN found that the description of a fireball lasting two to three seconds matched a bolide perfectly, that is, a meteoroid entering the atmosphere. The undulation may be a physiological visual illusion known as the autokinetic illusion. Bolides, which witnesses often perceive as very close, actually occur at altitudes of 100 to 50 km and can be seen from the ground over an area roughly 200 km across, which is consistent with the two accounts. The case was classified B: probable observation of a bolide.