(DPT) LOT (46) 24.01.1985

GEIPAN continues to publish all its archives on its public website, www.geipan.fr. These publications include older cases, classified at the time as A, B, C or D, that are now being reexamined solely to improve the relevance of their conclusions. New technical tools (software) and the investigative experience gained over the years sometimes lead this reexamination to new observations or even a change of classification. This sighting, previously classified D and named SAINT-GERMAIN (46) 1985, is among the cases recently reexamined. During the night of 24 January 1985, 2 witnesses were surprised by 2 successive flashes followed by clicking sounds and a sudden, intense, brief illumination. Above their house they saw a milky-colored object shaped and sized like a rugby ball, moving slowly and silently within a whitish halo. About 3 minutes later, they and other people heard explosive reports. No power failure occurred in the house. The description contains key features of some meteoroid atmospheric entries: - intense nighttime illumination over a large area; - an elongated oval glow with a halo crossing the sky; - detonations afterward; - multiple witnesses across a potentially extensive area. The gendarmerie report collected statements from people under the same roof or nearby. T1's appeal through the local press also identified about 10 people in neighboring districts who claimed similar observations at the same time, but they did not give statements to the gendarmerie. The phenomenon's aspects are separated in time. In GEIPAN's explanation, a meteorite caused the broad illumination at one or more particular moments of atmospheric entry, here flashes followed by a longer illuminated phase. Extreme brightness can last for varying lengths of time. At that stage the meteorite was outside the witnesses' field of view or they had no time to locate its source in the sky. By the time it entered view, it had dimmed. T1 said the daylight-like period seemed very long but must have lasted only a few seconds; darkness returned quickly, and at that moment an object or white fireball came into view. Detonations may follow the light by varying intervals. These entries occur high in the atmosphere, between 100 and 20 km altitude; sound traveling toward the ground at 330 m/s can produce delays of several minutes. Witnesses also commonly perceive the phenomenon as very close in the sky. The source notes that GEIPAN handled many such cases over the preceding 15 years and that numerous websites now record ground data from automatic cameras and/or witness accounts. GEIPAN knows these phenomena's recurring and variable features well, allowing accounts to be resolved without a dedicated investigation. This also makes old cases like this easier to reexamine unless the accounts are too brief to eliminate doubt. A 2016 example with more than 20 reports on the International Meteor Organization website illustrates how such sites operate, and the number and geographic spread of witnesses who may see one event. GEIPAN therefore classifies the case A: very probable meteoroid atmospheric entry.