UFOs in the daily Press:

The Poitevin UFO seen in Touraine

The luminous trace, seen Thursday evening in the sky by many Poitevins, also surprised the Touraine residents. It seems to be a large meteorite.

The Poitevins are not the only ones to have noticed, Thursday evening around 9:30 p.m., a strange luminous phenomenon in the sky (see yesterday's "NR"). In Cléré-les-Pins, Mr. Delabarre, who was walking his Labrador "Tarzan", around 9:35 p.m., saw "a sort of cigar-shaped flame of several colors: white, orange, sometimes blue.

It was moving from north to south at medium altitude. The phenomenon lasted from 5 to 10 seconds and I wondered what it could be. We could clearly see the light, which was not moving in a halo".

For his part, a resident of Tours-Nord claims to have seen at the same time "a luminous ball moving from west to east with a large luminous tail".

According to researchers at the National Center for Space Studies in Toulouse, it is probably a meteorite weighing several kilos that entered the atmosphere at very high altitude. "We have also received many testimonies, explains a specialist. The synthesis of these testimonies leads us to put forward the hypothesis of a large meteorite. Given that there was no radar recording, the phenomenon occurred at very high altitude. No fall on the ground in France has been reported."

"The bolide could have crashed much further away at sea or on a mountain. We can assume that it is metallic and not stony, because it did not break into several pieces upon coming into contact with the atmosphere".

The hypothesis of a satellite fragment has been ruled out, the object having entered at very high speed.

Michel EMBARECK. (with the Poitiers editorial team)