NUFORC Sighting 27488

Occurred: 2002-11-23 22:18 Local
Reported: 2003-02-03 00:36 Pacific
Duration: 2 minutes
No of observers: 1

Location: New Salem, IL, USA

Shape: Fireball
Characteristics: Left a trail, Changed Color, Landed

New Salem Red-Green Fireball Pre-Thanksgiving

On November 23, 2002 I recalled seeing at 10:18 pm while listening to a "Solid Gold" oldies rock and roll radio and having heard the time, a bright red then changing color to green fireball fall from the sky. The reason I am sending this to your database is that I did not know it existed until I got the book, "The worst case Scenario Survival Handbook: Travel, in it is the phoine number and e-mail address of your web site. I had written the entry on the page about Alien Abductions which was humorous. Anyway, the fire ball travelled from North by Northeast to a Southwest by Southerly direction, initially it was bright red like the Japanese WW II symbol only on fire with a fiery tail. It then turned a bright Light green color which was flourescent. This all lasted 2 minutes near the town of New Salem of of I-72. I was travelling east bound and the sky was relatively clear with many stars. But what really caught my eye was the fact that it was slower than a shooting star. Lats it was BIG, I mean I estimate the head end to be at least 100 feet in diamter and the tail to be 200-50 ft long. There were no sounds. I was heading to my brothers house up in Peoria, IL that evening after having left a company meeting in KC. I was looking forward to thanksgiving and spent an evening pointing some celestial bodies out to my relatives, brothers sister in laws, nephews and nieces. I am an amteur astronomer. I am a mathematician-statistian by training and did not believe UFO's until I saw this. This was definitely not of earthly origin.

NUFORC Note:

The date is a few days after the annual meteor shower, which peaked on November 18-19 in 2002. However, a meteor would not last for 2 minutes. They usually last for just a few seconds. Moreover, the witness identifies self as an amateur astronomer, so he almost certainly would be able to identify, and quickly rule out, any type of pedestrian celestial event, we suspect. PD

Posted 2003-03-11