BATILLY (54) 19.12.2020

Around 10:15 on 19 December 2020, a witness travelling at Batilly (54) in a van described as a “trafic Master”, with 3 colleagues, saw a round light in the clear daytime sky. Brighter than a star and apparently fairly large, it remained stationary for a few seconds ahead of him through the windscreen. He immediately alerted the front passenger, who saw the same thing. The phenomenon then rapidly shrank, becoming very small and disappearing in about 2 seconds. The overall observation is initially given as about 10 seconds. No sound was heard, and only 1 account was collected. GEIPAN's review strongly favoured the appearance and extinction of a daytime fireball; see the investigation report. It assessed the evidential strength as good because of the information and detail in the witness's questionnaire. The brief duration suggested a fast meteoritic phenomenon. GEIPAN found no conventional aircraft matching an extremely bright daytime object that quickly vanished. In this discussion the source gives the duration as about 8 seconds, attributed to the witness, rather than the initial 10 seconds. Its disappearance was considered typical of a bright daytime fireball fading out. GEIPAN considered a fireball probable, perhaps sporadic but more likely associated with the Geminids or December Leo Minorids. It classified the case A: a daytime fireball in a clear sky.