Sighting in Vouzailles, January 14, 2014

Two witnesses were in their living room, looking through the picture window, when a very bright ball of light crossed the sky in about two seconds. It left a faint trail behind it. The witnesses described its trajectory precisely, and their account was judged very consistent. One of them intuitively put its altitude at around 100 metres.

GEIPAN received no other reports, and the BOAM database (a meteor observers' network) had no record of such an event at that time. According to the investigation, the altitude estimate is very probably wrong: the phenomenon was very bright and the sky very clear, which made it look closer, especially as there were no objective reference points to place it. Since the sighting was made through a window pane, GEIPAN also considered an artificial light (a motorcycle headlight or a flashlight) behind the witnesses, but the fields of view did not seem to match the directions in which they were looking.

The case is classified B: it was probably a bolide, meaning a meteoroid entering the atmosphere.