BONNES (86) 30.09.2015

On 1 October 2015, the OVNI66 website alerted GEIPAN to several observations made the previous evening. The source's opening paragraph gives approximately 23:50 on 30 September, while the subsequent reports and camera records give 22:53. Both times are retained here. Witnesses reported very bright balls of light crossing part of the sky rapidly and simultaneously, suggesting a fireball, a type of meteor (see the source's explanatory article “Un bolide ?”). OVNI66 reported that the meteor crossing the Gers sky on Wednesday 30 September 2015 at 22:53 was visible from Les Vans (07), Campôme (66), Canet (66), Yssandon (19), Saint-Victor-en-Marche, Brissac (34), Chemillé-Melay in Maine-et-Loire (49), Toulouse (31), and as far away as Lyon (69). GEIPAN directly received a formal account from Bonnes (86), near Poitiers, giving 22:53. Many Toulouse witnesses contacted La Dépêche du Midi, and a GEIPAN staff member also caught sight of it peripherally. At 22:53, GEIPAN's automatic Allsky camera recorded the event, as did cameras at the Pic du Midi observatory and at Rochechouart (87), between Angoulême and Limoges (see the camera images). Three-dimensional modeling from these images established the luminous trajectory at an altitude of about 60 km. GEIPAN attributes it to a meteoroid entering the atmosphere, with fragments possibly reaching the ground. The source provides the Google Earth model “2015-30-09 2254.kmz”. GEIPAN infers an initial speed above 8 km/s from the short duration, supporting a natural origin: a small mineral body probably from the asteroid belt. It states that space debris would have produced a longer event. A check of http://www.calsky.com found no catalogued space-debris reentry visible from France that day. GEIPAN classifies the case A, positively identified as a fireball of natural origin.