NUFORC Sighting 109544

Occurred: 2014-05-13 21:57 Local
Reported: 2014-05-16 18:58 Pacific
Duration: 1-2 minutes
No of observers: 2

Location: Galesburg, MI, USA

Shape: Fireball
Characteristics: Lights on object

My friend and I saw a fireball and experienced some sort of psychological phenomenon.

Just before 10pm, I was driving my friend back to Galesburg from Kalamazoo, MI. As I usually do, I turned South onto Fullerton Ave from West Michigan St. to drop him off. He opened the door to get out, but then we both noticed a glowing red orb in the sky ahead of us, just over the trees, on the left side of the road. The object looked to be at least a few blocks away.

I said, "What is that?" My friend replied, "Maybe it's just a plane?" We both got a peculiar feeling. He closed the door and we drove South down Fullerton Ave toward the object. Luckily, there's an empty field a block away on the South side of Blake Blvd, adjacent to where we parked the car on Fullerton. We turned East at the intersection of Fullerton Ave and Blake Blvd and parked the car on the South side of Blake Blvd, next to the field.

When we pulled up we realized the object was closer than we thought and was more or less hovering over the field. We then began observing a decent sized object that looked like a ball of fire in the sky.

My friend and I agree that we observed the following: It flickered somewhat like a candle and was bright orange. The object was very low to the ground and looked to be well below the cloud ceiling at 1k-3k. The sky was completely overcast at the time.

The object we observed did not have wings, a tail, any visible means of propulsion, any cylindrical shapes, right of way lights, strobe lights, a propellor, jet engines, etc. The object was not an airplane, helicopter, ultra-light aircraft, etc. It didn't resemble any known aircraft. The only light coming from the object was an overwhelming red/orange/amber glow that flickered and didn't appear to be attached to anything, but was the object itself.

The object wasn't blowing around in the wind, like a chinese lantern, but seemed to be hovering around very slowly, under it's own control. The wind speed at the time was 7 mph from East to West. The object didn't make a sound; it was completely silent the entire time we observed it. As we started walking toward the object, it appeared ! to be hovering Northeast, in a straight line. However, my friend says the object was flying Southesat in a straight line. We demonstrated to each other that we both knew which direction North was from where we were.

We don't know how to reconcile the difference in direction, but agree the object was hovering in straight lines. I estimated its angle of elevation to be 40-45 degrees at the time. It remained at a near constant angle of elevation. Twice or three times during the time we observed it, it appeared to stop and remain stationary for short periods of time.

I turned on my cell phone camera and began running toward the object to take pictures. My friend stayed closer to the car and continued observing. We watched the object flicker for a short time, getting brighter and dimmer while hovering around. I snapped two pictures. They're both time-stamped at 9:57 pm. The object appears in both the shots, though the lighting is poor.

After I took the pictures, the object appeard to move in a short straight line and got dimmer. When it did, my friend and I simultaneously got a distinct feeling the object was going to disappear, though he and I hadn't said anything. The object then remained stationary, got incrementally dimmer and faded out.

Later on, at 11:30pm, I had driven back to Kalamazoo and to work for the night. We hadn't had a chance to talk about what we'd seen, as I didn't want to be late for work at 11:00pm. My friend and I got online and started taking about it. In discussing what we'd seen, my friend said, "It was weird when I knew it was going to disappear." I agreed with him. I felt the same thing. Then we realized we'd had that feeling at the same time, as if we'd had the same thought or feeling "together" somehow. We agree that whatever happened to us was very strange and very difficult to describe.

Posted 2014-06-04

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