WALBACH (68) 02.10.2013

On 2 October 2013 at about 22:00, 2 teenagers in Walbach (68) saw a round luminous object with green trails fall towards Rantswiller. The Sierentz gendarmerie collected the essential information accurately and, in GEIPAN's assessment, conducted an exemplary investigation with the relevant services. The www.boam.fr database records a fireball to the southwest captured that day at 21:57 by a camera in Chaligny (54), near Nancy. The attached document also shows several other large fireballs that night. Several people in the Paris region reported the event on the Ciel des hommes website under its Paris meteorite item. Reported times vary from around 22:00 to 22:15. The Walbach witness gave about 22:15, but had called his godmother at 22:03 just after the observation. GEIPAN considers that precise information, usefully gathered by the gendarmes, sufficient to associate this sighting certainly with the Chaligny camera's 21:57 fireball. The case is classified A: certain observation of a fireball caused by a natural meteoroid entering the atmosphere, described parenthetically in the source as a natural meteorite.