NUFORC Sighting 103321

Occurred: 2013-10-17 22:18 Local
Reported: 2013-10-17 19:50 Pacific
Duration: 3-5 minutes
No of observers: 1

Location: Charlottesville, VA, USA

Shape: Light
Characteristics: Lights on object, Left a trail

Yellowish, single, steady and silent ball of light with a con trail

I stand outside at night frequently, smoking cigarettes and checking out the night sky. I see aircraft all the time, and an occasional shooting star. One night, I clearly saw a meteor. I know when I'm looking at a planet. I've seen the ISS pass by before, and I've seen satellites, as well. That's my sky-watching background.

Tonight was the first time I could ever say without a doubt that I saw an object that I had absolutely no idea what I'd just seen.

It was coming from the West. At first, I thought it was a really bright star, but then I noticed it was moving to the East. It grew bigger, and brighter, and headed right towards the moon. I'd say it moved from ~35 degrees up to a maximum of 60 or so. The moon was at ~65-75.

When it passed between me and the moon, appearing a few degrees below it, I saw the contrail. Whatever it was, it was in the atmosphere.

When I saw that, I thought it might be a meteor or something else burning up, but it didn't look like it was on fire, or diminishing at all.

Honestly, I was expecting the trajectory to bend downward at any second and see it "pop" or "fizzle." But it just kept going.

It did look a little like one of those large airplane lights that are usually in the center of commercial airliners, but there were no accompanying flashing lights, or even steady smaller lights, which I always see on commercial airliners. It was just a steady, yellowish ball of light with a con trail, and the trail didn't resemble any meteor trail I've ever seen.

There's an airport just North of the city, so I see a lot of low-flying jetliners going in for landings. This was absolutely not one of those.

It was much larger than any planet, shooting star, meteor or aircraft light I've ever seen.

It also made absolutely no sound.

As it continued straight in the direction it was heading, I tried to get my phone's camera on it, but the light from the moon was too much. I could only watch it as it kept a steady course towards the Eastern horizon.

When it was barely visible to me, I turned back to the West, looking where it had come from, and saw 3 aircraft crisscrossing the sky at low altitudes relative to what I usually see out there, and flying routes I don't usually see.

I like to post meteor sightings to see if anyone else saw what I saw. I didn't believe it was a meteor, so I googled a short description of what I saw, and ufocenter.com was the first site returned. So, I decided to post it here and hope someone else might have seen it too.

Posted 2013-10-23