NUFORC Sighting 05156

Occurred: 1998-12-16 23:30 Local
Reported: 1998-12-17 00:00 Pacific
Duration: 20-30 seconds
No of observers: 3

Location: Long Key, FL, USA

Shape: Fireball
Characteristics: Aura or haze around object, Left a trail

We saw approx. 12 comet-like objects moving from the SW to the NE. They were in a ununiformed formation, & all had massive comet-like tails.

On 12/16/98 2 friends and I were fishing on Long Key, Florida. We were fishing from a bayside dock, and at approx. 11:30pm we witnessed a phenomenal event. Out of the corner of my eye I saw the sky light up, when I turned my head I thought I was seeing things. I immediately got my friends attention and we all stared in amazement. There seemed to be approx. 12 objects moving from the southwest (Keywest area) towards the northeast. Each one of the objects had a comet-like trail behind them, this trail made them all seem to blend together into one bright blob. They were in a disorganized formation and they moved at a constant and straight forward path. They looked to be a yellowish-white coloration similar to that of a bright star. They took up a very large portion of the sky. We watched them for approx. 30 seconds. We first saw them half-way through the sky and watched them fade out over the horizon. Each of the objects appeared to be round or comet like in shape. From our vantage point they seemed to be much larger than stars, planes or even the Hailey's Comet. Considering that only a few hours earlier we started bombing Irag, our first thought was that it was a large group of missiles. They moved much slower than a shooting star or meteor, however, they moved faster than a typical airplane or helicopter. After witnessing the event the three of us starting driving home. We saw a car stopped on the side of the road about a 1/4 of a mile from where we witnessed the event. We stopped to ask if they needed help. They said that they were fine, and asked us if we had seen the lights in the sky. We were thrilled that someone else had seen the lights. As we were talking about the lights, their road-side assistance pulled up. The driver of the road-side assistance was estatic, he too saw the lights. The driver told us he watched the lights for over a minute (from one side of the sky to the other). As we were driving home we wondered how many others had seen this event tonight.

Posted 1999-01-28