RENTREE ATMOSPHERIQUE — NATIONAL (FR) 20.09.2012

Several pilots in flight and a witness on the ground reported a luminous phenomenon moving slowly across the sky around midnight on the night of 21–22 September 2012. The case title instead dates it 20 September; the source does not reconcile these dates. A single observation report from the eastern en-route air traffic control centre in Reims recorded the accounts of 4 pilots. All described direct sightings in clear sky, without an onboard radar echo or any malfunction of flight instruments. One pilot described blue light. The ground witness at Laon saw a fluorescent-green ball with a trail on a descending path. The event seen by these observers in northern France was also widely seen from England, moving east to west more slowly than usual fireballs. Consulted meteor specialist Jérémie Vaubaillon of the Institute of Celestial Mechanics and Ephemeris Calculation considered it particularly interesting and suggested it might be a small asteroid temporarily captured by Earth. Given the pilots' northward viewing direction and the typical 100–60 km altitude range of such phenomena, GEIPAN concluded that the 4 pilots, Laon witness and English observers saw the same event. It classified the case A: a fireball caused by a meteoroid entering the atmosphere.