NUFORC Sighting 72280

Occurred: 2009-09-13 21:00 Local
Reported: 2009-09-14 06:35 Pacific
Duration: 30 Seconds
No of observers: 4

Location: Raritan Township, NJ, USA

Shape: Sphere


Very Large Orange Fire Ball Traveling South Over Hunterdon County, NJ

On September 13, 2009, my wife, my brother, my brother’s wife and I were sitting on my brother’s back patio in Raritan Township, New Jersey around a fire pit talking and spotting occasional satellites. My sister-in-law had not seen a satellite at night before and it was fun for us to pick them out from the sky. There were flashes of light in the southern skyline that had been going on for about twenty minutes and although we could not hear any sound produced from the flashes of light we commented there was probably an active fireworks display from a distant town event occurring. One thought it was lightening, but it was a clear sky in our area.

At approximately 9:00PM to 9:15PM, only my wife was looking into the sky. My brother had been adjusting the wood in the fire which drew the attention of the rest of us. My wife called out, “What is that?” The other three of us looked up in the southern direction she was pointing (about a 10 o’clock position from where we were sitting) and saw a very large object, which appeared to be a burning ball of orange fire traveling in a southern direction away from us. We all stood up and began calling out our observations to each other as it continued in a southern direction. We all commented about the unusual size and the orange flame. I asked if it could be a military aircraft afterburner, but this was dismissed due to no sound produced by the object and it seemed larger than a known type aircraft and the burning appearance continued throughout our entire observation which, to my knowledge, was inconsistent with an afterburner. We commented about the possibility of space debris! or a large meteor, but it did not appear to be descending. It continued in the direction of the suspected fireworks display which I suspect should produce more witnesses. It’s difficult to estimate how long in seconds we watched the object. I tracked it as long as possible and I would estimate we watched between twenty to thirty seconds which seemed too fast for a typical aircraft to cover that much area. It was very strange to all of us. Its flight path would have taken it in the Trenton/ Philadelphia area.

Posted 2009-12-12

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