COURONNE (LA) (16) 21.08.2025

On 21 August 2025 at 23:23, a witness outside his home in La Couronne (16) saw a UAP cross the sky for a few seconds. It was spherical, very bright and white, with a slightly cottony outline and a double trail. He compared its apparent size to a ping-pong ball if the Moon were a tennis ball. It reached a maximum elevation of about 60° to the north, then gradually disappeared northeastward along what he described as a perfect circular arc. GEIPAN assesses the evidential support as moderate: one witness and no photograph or video. Under its criteria, evidential support is the amount of information considered reliable and objectively established that has been collected for an account. The brightness, very regular movement and double trail made the phenomenon seem spectacular and unusual to the witness. The investigation considered only a fireball, a bright meteor produced by atmospheric entry. The spherical shape, white colour, strong brightness, rapid curved trajectory, trail and brief duration support this interpretation. GEIPAN explains the double trail as fragmentation caused by heating during entry. Covering about 80° of sky in a few seconds implies a high apparent speed consistent with a fireball. The witness's estimates yield an angular size of about 0.3°. The source interprets this small angular size as indicating a probably modest-sized celestial body (annex 1). No corroborating report or record was found by GEIPAN, the International Meteor Organization/American Meteor Society (IMO/AMS), which collect fireball reports, or the automated cameras of the Fireball Recovery and InterPlanetary Observation Network (FRIPON, www.fripon.org). GEIPAN classifies the case B: probable observation of a fireball.