NUFORC Sighting 73445

Occurred: 2009-11-22 22:55 Local
Reported: 2009-11-24 05:41 Pacific
Duration: 1 minute
No of observers: 2

Location: Johannesburg (South Africa), , South Africa

Shape: Fireball
Characteristics: Left a trail

Massive fireball turns night in to day in Johannesburg

My friend and I were driving in a Southerly direction when this ellipsoid of light entered the vehicle. The light was flat and thin and I reacted it was lightening, the next moment night became day it was so bright and stayed like that so i said that's not lightening and looked out of the car window to the east

Across the sky from North to south arching across the sky was a massive fireball. It started from below the cloud line and proceeded up across the arc as I watched and then the whole thing just disappeared it was really big and traveling fast, the whole thing was red with black cast pieces as if it had come stright out of a movie It was really big and the plume was the same distance as the head and then trailed to nothing. The head was like boiling gas pumping into the sky and then gone, no vapor trail nothing. Other people reported seeing coloured lights.

It is truly the most bizarre thing I have seen, they say it was a meteor, but there is 4 things wrong 1. It was going up not down, 2 how many meteors make night into day, 3 it vanished and if that had hit the ground their would have been a bang of note and crater somewhere as it was big official version is it exploded and they are looking for bits of it.

I did not see any debris and for 10.55 at night the sky was blue it was so clear. It was seen 600km

Posted 2009-12-12