NUFORC Sighting 88882

Occurred: 2011-07-04 20:30 Local
Reported: 2012-05-10 19:23 Pacific
Duration: 30
No of observers: 4

Location: Washington, IN, USA

Shape: Fireball
Characteristics: Lights on object

6 fireballs in slow succession, moving north to south

I stumbled upon this site by accident and realized my family and I witnessed the same objects that were reported in Greenwood, IN on the same night. If I had thought to check this site then, I would have reported sooner. UFO's aren't my thing but this was darned odd. I am a technology professional. I don't have time for UFO's and little green men.

About 45 minutes before fireworks were due to begin, my wife, my two kids and I were out in the front yard playing and waiting for darkness to fall so we could watch the fireworks our town puts on every year. Our yard has a spacious view of the skies to the north and west. As my infant son played in the bed of my pickup truck, I was intrigued when I noticed a single, bright ball of light moving very slowly southward from the distance in the northern sky. It took several minutes for the light to reach our position but slightly west of us. As it came closer, it almost seemed as if it was made of fire, like a campfire moving through sky?! Since there were no clouds, I was unable to determine any kind of altitude. As I watched it continue to move southward, it seemed to slowly fade out and disappear completely. I could see the lights and vapor trails of airplanes higher up but not this object.

As fascinating as that object was, I was completely astounded when I witnessed five more objects, traveling nearly the same trajectory, one by one in succession, cross the evening sky in the same general direction, that is, north to south. The last object traveled out of the north, moving directly south and ended up to the east of our position. They all took approximately 5 to 7 minutes to traverse the sky.

My first thought was that these were some kind of rocket tests as we are near Crane Naval Weapons Station. But I never found any news articles stating that there would be tests. I eliminated the possibility of chinese lanterns simply because of their trajectory. I didn't have a video capture device at the time so I was unable to get footage.

One idea I had was to look back and see what the wind patterns were on that night, but I am unable to find any data on this.

I hope this information is helpful to someone.

Posted 2012-05-13