NUFORC Sighting 11412

Occurred: 1999-11-16 19:08 Local
Reported: 1999-12-17 00:00 Pacific
Duration: 10 seconds
No of observers: 2

Location: Vicksburg, MI, USA

Shape: Fireball
Characteristics: Left a trail, Emitted other objects

Observed an orange fireball with between 4-6 trailing fireballs streaking across the sky in a SW to NE direction

At 7:05PM eastern time on the night of 11/16/99 I was sitting on the couch in the living room of my friends house. We had been deer hunting all day and were discussing the day's events when I caught a light out of the corner of my eye. The picture window in the living room was directly to my back and I looked up and saw this orangish (extremely bright!) object followed by several other smaller but similar objects streaking across the sky from southwest to northeast in direction. I yelled at my friend to "look, look now, hurry!, he jumped out of his chair and looked out the window and saw the last 2-3 seconds of it. Through the window I would guess that I had a view of approximately 20% of the sky and I saw the object for 8-10 seconds. I know you have a lot of reports on this but thought you might like another. The time and date are specific as I checked the clock immediately. I am an avid meteor watcher. I try to observe all the meteor showers and was going to go out later that night to try to see some that were expected but did not plan on seeing anything like this. The meteor shower for the 17th was a total dud in this area except for this fireball which I do not believe was related at all. I have seen many shooting stars, some quite amazing and none of them begin to match this one size, brightness or duration!

Posted 2000-01-07