NUFORC Sighting 27074

Occurred: 2003-01-12 01:30 Local
Reported: 2003-01-13 15:06 Pacific
Duration: ?4 minutes
No of observers: 3

Location: Burbank, CA, USA

Shape: Fireball

Fireballs hovering over Southern California

My wife and I had just said goodnight to one of our friends, and immediately after she left she called on her cell phone to tell us to go outside and look up into the western sky. As we peered up we saw three fireballs, orangish in color, moving into various formations: vertical , triangular, and horizontal patterns. They did not move any farther or closer during the four minutes that we saw them. They stayed in the same posistion in the western sky moving around in these semi-controlled patterns, and the night was clear as a bell (no clouds reflecting anything).They were 2-4 times brighter than the brightest star. Then, suddenly, they aligned so that we could only see one light. One of them appeared to drop quickly from the sky like a bottle rocket being shot downward, leaving a trail of sparks, then another, and the third just disappeared. Before all this ended I grabbed my video camera and managed to get about 30 seconds to one minute of tape. It certainly backs up my descrioption of the event, although the color off the fireball is absent. I am also aware that Vandenburg airforce base is in the direction we were looking, about 90 miles west/northwest of our location, and I have seen rockets launched from there numerous times. This was defintely not consistent with those. I have lived in the Burbank/Glendale area for 32 years and never seen anything like this. Unlike the other accounts this occurred very early Sunday morning.

Posted 2003-03-11