LIVRON-SUR-DROME (26) 11.07.2012

On 11 July 2012 at 21:30, 3 people in Livron-sur-Drôme saw a bright yellow ball move slowly from west to east, split into 2 and disappear. No sound was heard. GEIPAN rejected sky lanterns because it considered the eastward movement inconsistent with the northwesterly wind and because the object split in two. It favors space-debris reentry: the witness description, fragmentation, duration and eastward movement are compatible. Calsky's atmospheric-reentry catalog lists 2 reentries that day, but their nearly polar orbits do not appear to match this event. The BOAM meteor observers' catalog lists nothing at that time. The case is classified B: a probable atmospheric reentry of space debris.