LOURDES (65) 22.09.2013

A witness in Lourdes (65) reported successive evening observations of silent luminous balls between 22 and 28 September 2013. A very bright light near the horizon remained visible for long periods on successive days and seemed to follow him. GEIPAN identifies this familiar “following-ball” illusion as Venus, exceptionally bright in the early evening that autumn at magnitude −4.7. The witness's drawing indicates an approximate azimuth of 241°, compared with Venus at 235° at the same time. Photographs fit the explanation. A dimmer orange light slightly above and to the right was Saturn; see the sky chart. The witness also reported a distinct event on 23 September: an orange ball crossed extremely quickly for a few seconds. GEIPAN describes this much rarer phenomenon as a fireball, very probably a meteoroid entering the atmosphere; the source adds the term meteorite in parentheses. GEIPAN classifies the case A: observations of Venus and a fireball.