Mystery 'blue sphere with green tail' seen over Alsace

Around 18h on Tuesday November 14, reports began emerging of a rounded, blue shape with a green tail, flying over the department and the Grand-Est region.

Reportedly larger than a star and moving too quickly to be a planet or a plane, the object left witnesses confused as to what it could be.

Commentators have suggested it was simply a form of meteor, and more precisely, a "fireball" meteor.

“It was likely a small celestial body, which travels very quickly in the Earth’s atmosphere and which, on contact with the atmosphere, heats up its gases, giving this luminous trail behind it,” explained Jean-Yves Marchal, scientist at the Strasbourg planetarium, speaking to French news source FranceInfo.

Social media users also had comments.

“It was a huge thing, like a blue sphere with a green tail,” explained Sandrine, from Niederbronn-les-Bains (Bas-Rhin), while a man identified only as Frédéric, who was watching from Marckolsheim, said it was “larger than a shooting star”.

Others called it a “fireball” and others said it was simply “very strange to see”. No casualties or any other issues were reported.

Am Abend des 14.11.2017 flog ein #Meteorit bzw. #Sternschnuppe über #Homburg im #Saarland pic.twitter.com/pMhbQ9Zb55

— Feuerwehr Höchen (@FWHoechen) November 14, 2017

Any witnesses - of this and any other similar sightings - are asked to fill in a form on the website of French scientific research group Vigie-Ciel, to help their expert project, which is undertaking research on shooting stars, meteorites, and impact craters.