NUFORC Sighting 85492

Occurred: 2011-11-25 21:55 Local
Reported: 2011-11-25 23:55 Pacific
Duration: 5 minutes
No of observers: 3

Location: Long Beach, CA, USA

Shape: Fireball
Characteristics: Emitted other objects

VANTAGE POINT AND SIGHTING DIRECTION Standing at GPS coordinates (per Google Maps) 33.778603,-118.198761, if you face north and then turn eastward approximately 65 degrees, that is the direction we were facing. If you view this direction with Google Maps Street View, you see the power lines going above the apartments, garages and alley – the object we saw was hovering above the highest power line.

DESCRIPTION My daughter and granddaughter had gone out my building’s back door into the alley and called my phone to come out and look. It looked like a burning object, and I thought maybe it was an aircraft or a meteor, but it did not appear to be moving and there was no contrail. Then we saw a big burning piece fall straight down from the main object. This piece was smaller than the main object, left a trail of sparks and embers, and seemed to burn out and disappear before it traveled a quarter of the way from the object toward earth. This happened two or three more times, additional chunks falling in similar fashion from the main object while the main object continued to burn brightly - I say “burn” because it seemed to change shape and flare the way a fire does, and it was bright reddish orange and yellow like flames.

DURATION This went on for 2-5 minutes (it is difficult to estimate the time since we were so stunned by this – it was unlike anything we’d ever seen before), and then the main object’s “flame” seemed to suddenly go out, although we could still see the object, now looking like a very dim star.

The dim spot remained stationery for another 30 seconds to a minute, then started very slowly moving downward. As it got below (from our vantage point) the highest power line, it appeared to start moving south as it also gradually sank lower – the southward motion seemed faster than the downward motion and we lost sight of it after 2-5 minutes when the building across the alley (east) from us blocked our view.

Posted 2011-12-12

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