UFO Sighting August 7th 2009 appx. 8:37 EST

I'm hoping that others saw what I saw at 8:35-40 on the 7th of august 2009. Last week . . .

I was looking at the "full" moon which was south/southeast of my position at the time, and then suddenly a bright spherical object that appeared 1/6th the diameter of the moon passed directly underneath it. (Approximately 1 and ½ , moon diameters below it.)

I can't properly assess the “true” size of the object because it didn't pass over or behind anything. So I’m using the moon as a ruler for everything, which is really easy because it was "full" and the object passed directly beneath it. If I had to give my best guess, I'd say this thing was just within our atmosphere. Which makes this thing pretty enormous! The first thought that came into my head was "Gigantic meteor! We’re all going to die . . .” that’s how large this thing appeared. Obviously by the time I was done observing it I realized it was no meteor . . .

It passed under the moon horizontally, and traveled approximately 3 “moon diameters”.
It looked like it was on fire, but it couldn’t have been “fire” because it was GREEN. It was not a little green it was very green; Green highlighter green. The object appeared to get slightly larger as it progressed.

It was not moving in a downward or upward direction, it was moving strait across the sky. . . It seemed to be “coiling” as it traversed it’s path and also left a trail behind it. The trail it left was multicolored. Mostly green and pink/purple with hints of blue. After it traveled “3 moon diameters” it disappeared instantly.

There were no remnants of it at all. The “trail” disappeared as soon as the object did. The trail was weird because it looked like the original object "ghosting".
It remained superimposed behind the original object and did not seem to fade much but when the original object disappeared, the long strand disappeared at the same time . . . right before it disappeared it looked like a glowing “laser like” green/pink ribbon coiled in a straight line.

I’m very confident the entire event lasted approximately 2.3 seconds. I am able to calculate the time accurately because I moved toward the object to try to get a better look (to no avail) but I remembered how many steps I took off of the sidewalk into the street. I replicated my movements and timed them and they took me 2.3 seconds to reenact. I was also on the phone with my father when it happened and I had time to react and say “What the #^@! is that?” before it disappeared. When I time myself saying those words the way I did the first time, it also takes me around 2.3 seconds.

This thing made absolutely no noise either.

Wanted to post sooner but I had to make sure all of my facts straight.

If you were looking at the moon when I was and you live in New-England, you could not have missed it!

The closest thing I’ve found to what I saw on the web are these so-called "Green Fireballs"

Don’t know much about them though, and there seems to be very little info of them on the web.

Most spectacular thing I've ever seen.
-jphish

[edit on 8/13/2009 by JPhish]

reply to post by JPhish


Green fireballs.

Wow, I didnt know that was rare.

I saw one of those around this time last year at night. I didnt know that was rare to see. It made a very loud sort of high pitched sound. I just put it down to some fragments breaking up in the atmosphere.

Thanks for the read but I did not see anything unusual lately I am afraid, I probably wouldnt know if I did after reading the article on fireballs.

reply to post by XXXN3O


well apparently "green fireballs" are very rare. So if you did see one, you're very lucky.

Which direction was your "green fireball" moving? I'm hesitant to say my sighting was a "fire ball" because it was moving horizontally . . . which means it wasn't "falling" or being "shot up" from anywhere . . .

By the way. The "UFO" I saw moved "left to right" across the sky.

[edit on 8/13/2009 by JPhish]

reply to post by JPhish


Well it was going from the right side of the sky to left, extremely fast and the sound it made was not compareable exactly to anything else but if I was to try I would say high pitched whooshing noise.

Even if I had a camera theres no chance I could have captured it without foreknowledge of it appearing if that makes sense, really hard due to the speed. I was just putting rubbish outside at the time and happened to look up. The sound came quite a few seconds after the thing had flown from one end to the other.

It was also very low, I would say approximately small aircraft heights or just above, very low though for a meteor from what I have learned. There were no reports of anything so I didnt think to mention it etc.

Im pretty surprised, I didnt think there was anything unusual about that, I had spoken to a few people who said it must be a meteor. I thought it must be then.

[edit on 13-8-2009 by XXXN3O]

reply to post by XXXN3O


extremely fast? how long was it visible for?

Did it have a trail?

If i had had a camera on me when i saw this thing, i could have snapped a picture of it. It was visible for over 2 seconds. Too bad it takes 2 seconds for my camera on my cellphone to load . . .

reply to post by JPhish


If I blinked I would have missed it, I would say approx 1 second followed by a noise, if anyone was around that didnt see it they would have heard it. It didnt have a tail but I would say that was due to the closeness. It was pretty late in the evening (morning, 1am'ish)

A camera would take to long even if I had one ready I think, it was really fast, would need a fast shutter. Maybe it would have been possible to video but who takes a video camera to the bucket with them?

[edit on 13-8-2009 by XXXN3O]

reply to post by JPhish


Came across some other sighings on the date that you gave.

Have a read...

www.uk-ufo.co.uk...

www.uk-ufo.co.uk...

Dont know if any of those are similar?

None of them sound like what I saw, I still think its a meteor to be honest when it comes to my own. Dont know about yourself, I dont know a lot in this category.

[edit on 13-8-2009 by XXXN3O]

reply to post by XXXN3O


indeed, well that sounds really fast . . . almost as fast as the ball lightning i saw a while back.

would have been next to impossible to capture on camera.

This UFO seemed to stick around for quite some time though. It's going to irk me forever if I can not discover what it was. I'm sort of livid the "Schmoes" in the parking lot with me didn't see it . . .

reply to post by JPhish


Well your thread has sparked my curiosity to find out what I saw

Must be annoying when nobody else saw what you did, you might find out some time after if another person reports it or you come across an article etc.

Probably the new air force 1

They fly the old one near buildings so why not the new one? jk

Originally posted by XXXN3O
reply to post by JPhish

 

www.uk-ufo.co.uk...

www.uk-ufo.co.uk...

interesting that there were other sightings that day, though they don't appear to be the same thing. My sighting was much more "fleeting". The colors and timezones are all awry as well.

[edit on 8/13/2009 by JPhish]

reply to post by XXXN3O


Someone told me it may have been a Tango Romeo 3 Bravo or the result of one intercepting a missile or something. I'm open to ideas, but this thing just struck me as very large. Not sure how large the TR3B's are. If it was one of ours . . . i'm VERY impressed.

[edit on 8/13/2009 by JPhish]

Hi JPhish! I has a similar sighting, and to this day, I still don't have an explanation. You can check out the only thread I started to get an idea of what I saw that night.

Other members responded with "It's probably a meteor, blah blah blah"! I know what I saw that night and it wasn't a meteor. Just by it's shear size and close proximity to the ground it would have obliterated the entire town.

So basically, If you say it wasn't a meteor, I at least believe you. But, I don't have a better explanation for you either. But, I guess that's how it goes with these things.....

reply to post by LunaStar


wow Lunastar, I just read your old thread and that sounds very much like what i saw. Like i said, my first thought within the first second of seeing it was "gigantic meteor, we're all going to die". But again, this did not behave like a meteor . . .

This thing appeared to be immense. It seems you got the same feeling from yours.

You gave no description of a trail or tail in your UFO sighting. Did it have one?

hello i just wanted to say that i what to know more about what you saw im writing a book in the various sightings of UFO and the types of them im actaly trying to prove the government is hieing something from us and i really dont see a green ball of fire being any form of plane or missile but that's just my opinion i would expect it to be red

The first thought that came into my head was "Gigantic meteor! We’re all going to die . . .” that’s how large this thing appeared. Obviously by the time I was done observing it I realized it was no meteor . . .

It passed under the moon horizontally, and traveled approximately 3 “moon diameters”.
It looked like it was on fire, but it couldn’t have been “fire” because it was GREEN. It was not a little green it was very green; Green highlighter green. The object appeared to get slightly larger as it progressed.

It was not moving in a downward or upward direction, it was moving strait across the sky. . . It seemed to be “coiling” as it traversed it’s path and also left a trail behind it. The trail it left was multicolored. Mostly green and pink/purple with hints of blue. After it traveled “3 moon diameters” it disappeared instantly.

Congratulations on seeing your first bright Perseid meteor.

Yes they are bright, and that makes them appear to be larger than they actually are. If two lights, one much brighter than the other, are at the same distance, the brighter one will always appear to be bigger, even though they could well be the same size.

Also, a meteor that is low in the sky will also appear bigger than one that is high in the sky. This is exactly the same phenomenon as the moon illusion at work.

You do realize that meteors can be very bright? Much brighter than the Moon in some cases, and in exceptional cases they can be brighter than the Sun!

Meteors can also leave various trails and wakes, but it is also not unusuall that no trail or wake is present at all.

As for it being unusual/green...

Wow, I didnt know that was rare.

It's not.

Green meteors are fairly common especially during August an November when the Perseid and Leonid meteor showers are at their peak.

Green is the "default" color that brighter meteors produce when they first hit the atmosphere, and it's primarily due to Oxygen, which glows green when when excited. Meteors do not "burn". There is too little oxygen for that at the altitudes that meteors can be seen. The light is produced throgh a process called ablation

Which direction was your "green fireball" moving? I'm hesitant to say my sighting was a "fire ball" because it was moving horizontally . . . which means it wasn't "falling" or being "shot up" from anywhere . . .

Meteors/fireballs can appear to move in any direction in the sky. They can appear to travel upwards from the horizon, as well as downwards, sideways, and they can even appear not to move at all!

Apparent direction of movement and apparent altitude trips up allot of people. Often when a bright meteor is observed by an inexperienced observer, they will say it looked like a UFO or aircraft crashing to the ground not far away. This is because meteors can appear to be low in the sky, when they are actually many tens of km above the ground. I've explained how this works many times before, so I'm going to include my standard response:


People often mistake meteors for UFOs or planes about to crash - meteors have a strange knack for playing tricks on unsuspecting eyes. The brain has trouble interpreting the size, distance and therefore the actual speed of a light source/object in the sky with no/few visual cues, so it makes up the missing information. This is the basic principal of an optical illusion, and the nature meteors (brief and bright) makes them ideal candidates.


This page explains in a bit more detail about why meteors can appear to be closer to the ground (or the observer) than they actually are.

This diagram should help you visualize what is going on:


Basically, the lower down in the sky (or closer to the horizon) a meteor appears to be, the further away it probably is. In the exceptional cases where this is not the case, and a meteor is still luminous, and less than 1km away from you, unless you're within diving distance of a bunker, that would probably be the last thing you ever saw.

In 1908, what is thought to be a fragment of a comet exploded somewhere between 5 and 10 km above Tunguska, devastating an estimated 2150 square km and knocking down 80 million trees!

--

Meteors become luminous at around 80-100 km. It's extremely rare for a meteor to remain luminous below 40 km. The atmosphere becomes so thick to all but the most huge meteoroids that have enormous momentum, that it's like us trying to wade through treacle. Even the tallest mountains are less than 10 km tall, and your average mountain range is more like 3-5 km.

Here's another diagram that should illustrate to you what is occurring in a situation like this.



Notice that I've represented the meteor entering the atmosphere coming in at a low angle. For meteorites to survive, the angle has to be within certain limits. Too low, and they skip off the atmosphere like stones skimming across water (known as an "earth grazers"). Too steep of an angle (and/or too fast) and the forces are so great on the meteoroid that all but the hardest metal meteoroids detonate soon after hitting the atmosphere.

The physics is well laid down, and backed up by photographic evidence. It is possible for meteoroids to be luminous near to the ground, but as I said before, it would have to be exceptionally large. If this were the case, there would be sonic booms, and the meteor would likely appear to be brighter than the Sun. If it remained luminous all the way down to the ground, there would be a large crater, and it would be obvious for miles around that there had been an impact, due to the blast wave and ground shaking.

This meteor (if it was a meteor) was relatively small. It's extremely easy to misjudge the size and distance because of the way our brains process the information we see, often "filling in the gaps" where information is missing.

In this case, because meteors are surprisingly bright, and the brain interprets bright (big) lights as being close, and dim (small) lights as being far away (which is generally the case on the ground), the far off, but apparently large meteor will always appear closer than it is to the eye. In the sky there are few visual cues, as there are usually on the ground. Sometimes clouds can help in providing cues, but that's about it. Without these cues, our brains simply cant work out the distance of a light, and our brains are forced to assume that big and bright means close.

That goes for you, me and everyone else. Our brains are just wired that way. It means that meteors are often mistaken for UFOs, since the majority of people are aware a meteor could not be close, but unaware that it's a glitch in us that makes it seem that way. I and most meteor observers have experienced this effect first hand, and it's easy to see why people are taken in by it.

If you have ever witnessed the Moon illusion, that works along similar lines, although the "meteor illusion" blows the socks off the "moon illusion" each and every time, guarenteed!

Hope that explains. If not feel free to ask me any questions!

[edit on 21-8-2009 by C.H.U.D.]

reply to post by C.H.U.D.


thank you very much. This was REALLY informative.

Many of the things i experienced seem to line up with what you're talking about BUT.

i didn't judge its size based on its luminosity. I judged it based on the dimensions of the trail it left behind. The trail was completely uniform and was not thicker or thinner at any point. It was pretty darned thick actually.

This thing was observed for over 2 seconds . . . isn't that a little slow moving to be a meteorite?



This is approximately the angle at which i saw this thing.

I'm noticing in this diagram the upper portion is green, does this mean that whatever i saw barely grazed the upper atmosphere? Maybe it surfed it or something?

Like i said, first impression when i saw it was "meteor" . . . but it seemed to be visible for way too long . . . I saw 2 shooting stars 2 days ago and they were very fleeting. Lasting only a fraction of a second. This thing lasted a full 2 seconds and more.

What about the multicolored "tail"? Are greens and pinks normal?

[edit on 8/23/2009 by JPhish]

reply to post by JPhish


You're welcome JPhish.

You may well not have judged size/altitude/distance consciously, but your brain would be doing the very same subconsciously. Like when you look at the moon close to the horizon, and even though you know it's an illusion, the moon still appears much larger than it would at a high altitude in the sky. You can't over-ride the "hard-wiring" in your brain, at least not without serious coaching, and even then I'm not sure that it would be possible do do in a case like one of the above.

Trails, as far as I know, will always appear wider than what ever caused them (jet contrails being a prime example), except perhaps in the case of very bright/extremely bright meteors. I have to be honest, I have not payed much attention to apparent trail width vs apparent object size, but I'll try and pay more attention to this aspect in future.

When you talk about the uniformity of the trail, I assume you mean width? If so, then I have no explanation for it, but it is not uncommon with meteors. I've seen Perseids do it on many occasions. Its as if someone put a fat (florescent green in this case) marker pen square on a sheet of paper, drew a line, and then removed the marker instantly without letting the line "trail off".

There are so many variables with just the trails/wakes of meteors alone, that almost every one is different. Individual perception also can play a part, but yes, the trails can vary in color a bit. I usually percieve trails to be very pale colors (usually green) if there is any color at all.

There is still much we do not know about trails, especially how they can last so long. In the case of some persistent trains produced by very bright meteors (bolides or fireballs might be better terms), they can remain self-luminous for 10's of minutes in exceptional cases.

You are correct - the average meteor (if there is such a thing!) is usually visible for under a second, but although most meteors are quick and short lived, there are also slow and longer lasting meteors. Once again, there are many variables involved with how long a meteor is visible for, and quickly or slowly a meteor appears to be moving. The most important of these are angle of entry (relative to both the observer and the atmosphere), size/composition of the meteoroid, and relative velocity.

Here's a nice collection of exceptional meteor footage, with examples of mostly slow meteors:


Here are Leonids and Perseids for comparison, both of which produce meteors that are at the upper end of the relative velocity scale for objects that have orbits around our sun, although you should keep in mind that apparent speed is heavily influenced by angle, and grazers are actually much swifter than other members of the same shower, but because of the low entry angle they survive for much longer in many cases, which is what makes them quite spectacular to behold on some occasions!

Perseid Meteors 2007 UK


Leonid Meteors
Meteor No.2 Leo 2001


As for it being a "grazer", yes it may well have been...

You said that it was about "8.35-8.40" local time when you observed the event on the 7th, and according to my software, Perseus would have been not very high above the horizon, and you would still expect meteors seen well away from the Perseid radiant to be grazing the upper atmosphere at this time.

Can you confirm that you have the date/time right, as my software says the moon would have been only just above the horizon at this time? You would have had to be looking towards a horizon with little or no obstructions (trees, buildings etc) to hinder the view, and that Perseid would have had to be barely above the horizon, and heading slightly down as well as south.

Yes again. In the diagrams, I have colored the start of the meteor green since oxygen is more prevalent at the altitude where meteors first become visible in the atmosphere (a little over 100 km usually). Lower down, the meteoroid encounters more nitrogen which glows red when it is excited, and between the green from oxygen, and red from nitrogen, you get yellow/orange. A green color + long lasting Perseid almost certainly is indicative of an earth grazer skimming the upper atmosphere, and not penetrating deep.

Here's a Leonid grazer I was lucky enough to capture with one of my cameras during the 2001 Leonid storm:




Normal Leonid meteors for comparison. Not my shots, but also taken during the 2001 Leonids storm:


As with all meteor showers, Leonid meteors always point back to the Leonid radiant (a small area of sky that meteors belonging to the same shower appear to "radiate" away from). Meteors seen in the radiant will be heading directly towards the observer, and so will appear to be "stationary stars", that suddenly brighten and fade. You can see at least one so called "point meteor"(or very close to it) in the above image.


Heres a shot taken further away from the radiant, where meteors will be more "grazer like" since the further away from the radiant you get, the lower the angle of entry is.


Source: click here

Both the Perseids and Leonids (along with some other annual meteor showers) share similar characteristics. It varies from year to year, and person to person what you see, but for me the Perseids tend to be more pastel shades, where as the Leonids are nearly always strikingly vivid in color.

You might also like to know that some are predicting an outburst during this years Leonids, but others are not so sure. The predicted outburst would best be viewed from Eastern/Central Europe, Eastern/Central Africa, The Middle east.

Unfortunately the peak is expected during daylight where you are, but it's always worth watching on the nights either side, even if you do miss the peak wherever you are. There is always a chance of being lucky and see something despite the forecast, as your experience shows, 4 days before the first predicted peak. Keep an eye on the Space Exploration Forum here on ATS for further info anyway.

This year was a very good year for early Perseids as it happens (and a very memorable peak for some also!), but there is always a slow and gradual buildup with the Perseids.

Here is this years activity profile for example, and the main index with previous showers for comparison.

There is also the Orionids meteor shower in about a months time. October is a good month for meteor showers in general, and the moon is out of the way for the Orionids which is a good thing.

Here's a guide I wrote with lots of info and links, that you might find useful:
Seen a swift/very swift moving light (colored or white) in the sky?

reply to post by C.H.U.D.


That first video was really awesome to watch. Were the meteors in the first video moving in real time or were they slowed down? Although spectacular, none of the meteors in the video even slightly resembled what i saw.

The meteors in the second video appear nothing like what i observed either. Way too fast.

What i saw looked similar to the Leonid grazer you photographed, except it was much, much thicker. At-least 20 times thicker than the one you photographed. It's also missing the pink discoloration too. The "luminescence" is similar though, a "laser like" feel to it.

The pictures of the normal Leonid meteors have similar colors to the one i saw. Except the pinks and greens were not separated as shown. It was more random. for instance, the tail was green, green, pink, green with pink on top, pink with green on the bottom, green, pink, green etc. More blotchy.

I don't doubt that it could have been a meteor. Like i said, it was what i originally thought it was . . . But it seems really strange one if that's the case.

the corkscrew motion that i witnessed might have been do to the "wiggling" you mentioned. Though you say it's rare . . .

Could it have been many meteors very close together which resulted in the very large multicolored trail?

Originally posted by JPhish
That first video was really awesome to watch. Were the meteors in the first video moving in real time or were they slowed down? Although spectacular, none of the meteors in the video even slightly resembled what i saw.

Yeah, there are some nice ones in there!
All of them (except for the security camera shots obviously) are real time. Most of them have counters in the corner so they can be accurately timed.

That video was purely to demonstrate how slow meteors can be, and how long they can last in some cases. Also a pretty good demonstration of how bright they can be

Keep in mind, that almost all the clips in that first collection are of asteroidal material entering our atmosphere. Asteroids are made from quite hard/dense material, unlike comets and cometary meteoroids which have a density similar to that of cigarette ash and tend to be extremely fragile. Despite this, cometary meteor showers like the Leonids and Perseids can still produce long meteors (earth grazers) when the conditions are right.

Originally posted by JPhish
The meteors in the second video appear nothing like what i observed either. Way too fast.

This is where perspective comes in (depending on which direction relative to you they are moving, members of the same shower can appear to travel at different speeds), and also possibly some element like another optical illusion. Perhaps even temporal ie time seems to slow down, which is what happens in fast passed life threatening situations.

It might not even have been a Perseid meteor, although IMO your description matches a Perseid pretty well. A random meteor that is not associated to any shower might be to blame for what you saw.

Originally posted by JPhish
What i saw looked similar to the Leonid grazer you photographed, except it was much, much thicker. At-least 20 times thicker than the one you photographed.

I think it can often seem that the trail a meteor blazes in the sky is thicker than it actually is, until you actually measure it carefully against the background stars. Also, although photographs of meteors give some impression of what the event was like, they never really show what the eye sees in real life obviously.

The photograph I took (with quite a wide angle lens) in particular may also be slightly misleading to the untrained eye... If you look at Orion in the lower left of the image, and it's size in comparison with the rest of the photo and the meteor, you can see the meteor is very long. This can make it appear to be thinner than it actually was in real life.

Originally posted by JPhish
It's also missing the pink discoloration too. The "luminescence" is similar though, a "laser like" feel to it.

The range and intensity of colors observed in meteors and their trains is almost unlimited, and no two meteors are ever exactly alike. Colors can also change at the drop of a hat.

Originally posted by JPhish
The pictures of the normal Leonid meteors have similar colors to the one i saw. Except the pinks and greens were not separated as shown. It was more random. for instance, the tail was green, green, pink, green with pink on top, pink with green on the bottom, green, pink, green etc. More blotchy.

I don't doubt that it could have been a meteor. Like i said, it was what i originally thought it was . . . But it seems really strange one if that's the case.

Yep, as I said, they can be many colors, even at the same time. Often IME what you see is not what the camera captures, especially when in comes to the subtler aspects, which are often "washed out" by the extremely bright head of the meteor in a photograph.

Originally posted by JPhish
the corkscrew motion that i witnessed might have been do to the "wiggling" you mentioned. Though you say it's rare . . .

Some meteors might actually be cork-screwing in real life, if they have weird protrusions on their surface or a shape that makes it likely. They are rare, but occasionally observers report such meteors. Some meteors can also give the impression of spinning, which I think is especially true of meteors when they are breaking up.

Originally posted by JPhish
Could it have been many meteors very close together which resulted in the very large multicolored trail?

That's another possibility. In 1987 the Leonids had a "stormlet". Those who observed it only described seeing a single meteor, but there were actually an estimated 150 meteors captured on video in less than two seconds.

I'm still 99.999% sure what you saw was a meteor (thanks for adding in those details), although it may not have been a Perseid, but I'd urge you to try observing a few future meteor showers, and you may not see exactly the same thing again unless you spend a long time observing, but if you are patient and devote at least 2 or 3 nights a year, when the major showers are peaking you'll see many of the same characteristics that you described, and many others too, especially if you can find light pollution free skies to observe under.

At any rate, next time you happen you be watching the sky and see a spectacular meteor, wait around a while, and you may see a load more. It's hard to gauge what if anything is going on unless you spend some time observing. At least 20 or 30 minutes, but 1 or 2 hours is always going to increase the odds in your favor. Keep in mind that meteor rates tend to build up to a peak just before dawn, although this is not the case all the time.

Most people do not realize, but outbursts occur every year, although most are small showers that go unnoticed for the most part, but that's not always the case, and if you are lucky enough to catch a strong Leonid or Perseid outburst or storm, you'll remember it for the rest of your life.

Originally posted by C.H.U.D.
Also a pretty good demonstration of how bright they can be

Most of them in the first video seems a lot brighter than the one I saw.

Perhaps even temporal ie time seems to slow down, which is what happens in fast passed life threatening situations.

possibility, but I don’t think my perception of time would change the amount of steps I could take off the curb. I’m fairly certain it was visible for over 2 seconds.

It might not even have been a Perseid meteor, although IMO your description matches a Perseid pretty well. A random meteor that is not associated to any shower might be to blame for what you saw.

My father watched the sky with a telescope for several hours after I saw it. He didn’t see anything the rest of the night.

I think it can often seem that the trail a meteor blazes in the sky is thicker than it actually is, until you actually measure it carefully against the background stars. Also, although photographs of meteors give some impression of what the event was like, they never really show what the eye sees in real life obviously.

Indeed . . . well the one I observed seemed really thick. It easily effaced stars in the sky as it passed over them.

The photograph I took (with quite a wide angle lens) in particular may also be slightly misleading to the untrained eye... If you look at Orion in the lower left of the image, and it's size in comparison with the rest of the photo and the meteor, you can see the meteor is very long. This can make it appear to be thinner than it actually was in real life.

yes I didn’t realize that when I first looked at it. Incredible dimensions . . . still it seems a lot thinner than what I saw. Perhaps not 20X thicker. Honestly the scale of your photo really threw me off! Perhaps only 6 or 7 times thicker now that I have a better grasp of the scale of the picture.

Some meteors might actually be cork-screwing in real life, if they have weird protrusions on their surface or a shape that makes it likely. They are rare, but occasionally observers report such meteors. Some meteors can also give the impression of spinning, which I think is especially true of meteors when they are breaking up.

Makes sense to me.

That's another possibility. In 1987 the Leonids had a "stormlet". Those who observed it only described seeing a single meteor, but there were actually an estimated 150 meteors captured on video in less than two seconds.

I don’t think it would have needed to have been 150 meteors . . . but if there were multiple objects it might explain why the tail seemed so thick and why it was multicolored.

I'm still 99.999% sure what you saw was a meteor (thanks for adding in those details), although it may not have been a Perseid, but I'd urge you to try observing a few future meteor showers, and you may not see exactly the same thing again unless you spend a long time observing, but if you are patient and devote at least 2 or 3 nights a year, when the major showers are peaking you'll see many of the same characteristics that you described, and many others too, especially if you can find light pollution free skies to observe under.

I’m not going to have much luck finding non polluted skies. I live in NYC.

At any rate, next time you happen you be watching the sky and see a spectacular meteor, wait around a while, and you may see a load more. It's hard to gauge what if anything is going on unless you spend some time observing. At least 20 or 30 minutes, but 1 or 2 hours is always going to increase the odds in your favor. Keep in mind that meteor rates tend to build up to a peak just before dawn, although this is not the case all the time.

yeah, like I mentioned before, my father watched the sky for a few hours after I witnessed the event. He said he didn’t see anything. Oh well.

Most people do not realize, but outbursts occur every year, although most are small showers that go unnoticed for the most part, but that's not always the case, and if you are lucky enough to catch a strong Leonid or Perseid outburst or storm, you'll remember it for the rest of your life.

Well I’ll remember this rest of my life. I’m just glad I know (for the most part) what it probably was.

Thanks for sharing your beautiful pictures, videos, and knowledge CHUD.