Taurid meteor mistaken for a slow-moving light in Haute-Saône

Summary

On 14 November 2016, a driver in Haute-Saône watched a white light move slowly across the sky for about ten seconds. He thought of a shooting star but was puzzled that it neither burned out nor left a visible trail. The description matched a small, slow meteor coming from the east and crossing toward the west or southwest. When a meteor is not very bright, the luminous tail can go unnoticed.

The date coincided with activity from the Taurid radiants (south and north), located near the star Aldebaran on the east-northeast horizon. These meteors, linked to comet 2P/Encke, travel at roughly 29 km/s — a speed that explains the observed duration. GEIPAN classified the case as A, fully explained by a Taurid meteor.