NUFORC Sighting 77134

Occurred: 2007-08-07 22:00 Local
Reported: 2010-08-11 18:35 Pacific
Duration: over one hour
No of observers: 2

Location: Erie, PA, USA

Shape: Fireball
Characteristics: Landed

Orange Flaming Orbs fall from the sky over Lake Erie, August, 2007

The Event occurred during a late summer rain storm. Although the rain was not heavy, the dark cloud over Lake Erie was distinct. The phenomena observed began as a casual observance of a single speck of light. We observed what appeared from the shoreline as a light perhaps a mile or two offshore. The only way we could observe this occurence was with an average powered pair of field binoculars. At first looking through the binoculars it appeared as if it might be a small boat, but closer examination revealed that this was something "on fire". I quickly alerted my companion to look into the binoculars to get his opinion. He also saw this ball of flame. What happened after this first encounter was quite startling. Let me say that I have never had a close encounter and am suspect of anything currently being written about the UFO phenomenology. However the unfolding events of that night have not only startled me, but have stayed with me for the last three years. O! nly today was I able to define my observances based on other eye-witnesses who had similar sightings. They have described what they similarly saw as "orange flaming orbs". Other descriptions were ascribed to them, but in my case the "orange flaming orbs" fits the description perfectly. I thought that one orb appearance was enough, but what makes this an even more intriguing mystery is that after this first orb disappeared beyond the Lake Erie's horizon line, another one began to fall from the low hanging dark storm cloud.

I have read other accounts and descriptions of "ascending lights" and fast lateral moving lights but these were not like that at all. We watched as consecutive flaming orbs fell very slowly from the sky and eventually into the water. What is also amazing is how each was orchestrated in its falling velocity (extremely slow-- slower than a parachutist, so we knew this wasn't a nighttime military mission) and also that the intensity of the light stayed consistent-- from the time it appeared coming out of the dark cloud until it hit the water's horizon line. I should note that there were no sounds being emitted and no sounds of jets, airplane or helicopter engines were heard. The fact that it was a drizzling rain (with no lightning, I might add) made it impossible for this to be man-made-- such as what I thought it might be: a summer "art performance" by some of the local artists. No one in their right mind would want to be out in this weather on the vastness of Lake Erie. No ot! her lights appeared-- suche as boats or planes. The house we observed all of this from is remote from the city so no street, traffic or building lights could have interfered.

As much as I am recreating this story, we unfortunately had no access to good night time cameras or videos, but I would testified unequivocally that this was a phenomena that deserved a full and further investigation. To continue with the observation, we stood on the back porch with a full panoramic view to the west toward Cleveland and to the east toward Buffalo. We were facing north toward Canada when these lights were observed. In the same fashion as described earlier, we observed at least 16 of these same flaming orbs extremely slowly fall from the sky and into the waters. As each one disappeared the next one began to come out from the underside of the cloud. This event went on for at least one hour. There were more that continued to fall and perhaps a whole string of them from our line of sight and down toward Buffalo, but I actually felt frightened (amazed and excited as well) and wanted to report this occurance to the Lawrence Park police, but being a skeptic and resp! ectful of this tiny suburb and being late at night I hesitated to call anyone to bring undo attention to the neighborhood. I looked in the Erie Times News the next day to see if there was a story about this light phenomena, but did not find anything, nor was there anything on the television. This event has stayed with me since 2007. It is only today that I found your reporting website and also found better descriptors based on other observances.

Posted 2010-08-24