NUFORC Sighting 20786

Occurred: 2001-12-12 19:45 Local
Reported: 2001-12-12 21:26 Pacific
Duration: 3-4minutes
No of observers: 3

Location: Ucaipa, CA, USA

Shape: Light
Characteristics: Lights on object, Aura or haze around object, Emitted other objects, Changed Color, Aircraft nearby

bright orange,slow moving light seen moving over Yucaipa CA

I was walking out to my truck and was looking up at orion, when I noticed a light which at first looked as if it could be a plane with its landing lights on,,,but I kept looking for the stobe lights( i have seen bright lights before,,but once the plane changes position you can see the strobes)this time as the object moved overhead it was just as bright and seemed to be moving too slow...it moved from the southeast(over calimesa or cherry vally) to the north( over mentone or posibly big bear).I have seen other lights at night,,,,crop dusters in the central califonia valley, meteor showers (the leonids etc this last nov 17th and others),even man made satalites, and military flare parachutes out in 29 palms for military battle practice. This light seemed most like a flare,,,,,but it moved too far to have been a parachute.It did glow from all direction with a bright orange color.this object seemed to be(from my perspective to be in the flight path area of local air traffic going to Ontario airport. In the 2nd or 3 minute of this event, the object stopped in the north sky , and some time later I saw something drop off of it,,,,and this thing was on fire(or glowed) the same as the main object, it fell a short distance (about 1 or 2 degrees) and burned up.the main object continued to glow for about another minutes ,in this time it changed from orange to red in color,,,,then faded out(this could be characteristic of a flare)

Posted 2002-01-11