MONTREVEL (38) 10.09.2017

On 10 September 2017 between 21:45 and 22:00, a witness caring for her child noticed a bright light pass rapidly. She described a round yellow-orange shape, apparently on fire, falling silently. She hurried to the window but it had vanished. Thinking it might have fallen near the house, she searched the following morning without success. Her account of 1–2 seconds of dazzling light and a burning round shape matches at least 25 reports of a fireball—a meteoroid entering the atmosphere—at 19:29 UT, or 21:29 French local time, on 10 September. It was visible from Meurthe-et-Moselle to Bouches-du-Rhône, including Pyrénées-Orientales, Isère and Switzerland. It apparently fragmented into many pieces at the very end of its luminous path (see REFORME). Fourteen FRIPON cameras also detected it. The reported time does not quite match. The witness gave a 21:45–22:00 interval and said her clock radio showed the correct time, but might not have checked it at the instant of observation, potentially explaining the discrepancy. Her 4 m altitude estimate was intuitive. High brightness made it seem close without an objective reference. GEIPAN explains that fireballs often appear nearby but actually occur at 100–50 km altitude and can be seen across an area roughly 200 km in diameter. Despite the timing discrepancy, the described appearance and path leave little doubt in GEIPAN's assessment that this was the widely observed fireball. The case is classified A: very probable fireball observation.