Anyone ever seen a falling fireball.

Back in 1995 I was 12 years old in the car with my mom and 3 friends from the neighborhood we witnessed something strange. The area I lived in was a bit rural and we had a long drive way about 500 yrds. We were just about to pull in the drive way when I spotted something falling from the sky. The object was about the size of a large beach ball it was almost to the trees when I spotted the object it was trailing about a 4 ft tail. The object hit the top of the trees at a 45 degree angle when it hit a few sparks flew but not like a massive amount there was no sound it did not shake the ground or anything like that I was no more than 100 yrds from this when it happened also I forgot to mention it was dark so it was quite spectacular to see. I pondered over it all night with no conclusion but say a meteor so when I woke up the next morning my brother and I went looking for it we did not even see a broken branch. I expected a hole in the ground or something. Does anyone have an Idea what this could have been.

I would guess that it must have been a meteor.

I saw one once. It was green, nebulous and short-lived.

No noise associated with it either. It was around the time of the Leonid meteor showers that year.

reply to post by teotwawki77


I have! Actually Myself and my daughter saw it. We were walking our dog around the neighborhood I'd say it was summertime around 6-7pm. The fireball was orange and it was about the size of a volleyball. It was coming down at about a 45 degree angle headed towards the Atlantic Ocean. (we lived 2 miles inland from a Nj beach).

I didn't hear anything about it on the news or in the local papers. Although, a couple of weeks later there was something about a different beach a few miles south of us, you might have read something. Normandy Beach, NJ.

Anyway, that's my story. Nothing spectacular unfortunately. I wish there were more to it, but I will never forget it.

A few months ago I was driving home from Austin - West on hwy 71. My mom and I saw this huge green fireball fall from the sky. We were both like "OMG did you see that?".
Another time when I was a kid we were on vacation I think in Wyoming maybe, our whole family saw this huge green thing /fire ball in the sky. i remember my parents thinking it was a falling satellite.

My fireball was red or orangish just like you would imagine from a meteor. But why have I always heard that if a meteor hit it would be catastrophic and they would be traveling millions of miles per hour and release poisionous gases. It seems if these are meteors that they are not that bad if one hit you in the head yea it would kill you but thats my guess.

Back in 1979 a friend and I witnessed on 2 occassions, a -blue- (just totaly pure blue) ball of light, no tail. It appeared from in the sky and traveled strait downward, no angle, like meteorological stuff. We could not tell how far down it went, as it was probably a mile or so, away.

I saw a nice big one! First off I thought that star up there is acting odd! - it grew in intensity considerably over a few seconds, so much that I noticed it out of the corner of my eye as I was walking... As I looked directly at it it turned into more of a line that stretched out... After about 10 seconds I suppose I could really see that line fragmenting and the leading end was pulsing quite slowly brighter and quickly dropped intensity... One last flash and the whole thing faded. It was a white light the same colour as the brightest stars in the sky - which is why I initially thought it was a star.

It must of come in at a very steep angle and burned up quite high up - no sound at all. I sometimes think that the angle I witnessed it from could have put me right at ground zero had the thing actually made it to the ground lol.

So is was probably some space rock... Possibly even space junk... I had a very quick to see if a satellite had come down, but nothing - about 5 months ago SW uk... No one I have mentioned it to around here saw it.

Back around 1985 I was on a Beirut cruise while in the service and this would have been the time during when the United States pulled out of Beirut.

So I was on the Ocean and during the night a light appeared on the horizon. I asked the watch on the back of the ship what ship it was. He didn`t know and was contacting the Bridge as it suddenly turns red and you can see it is heading in our direction. Before you could do much of anything it was directly overhead. Giant fire ball with a nice long tail. It passed over not making a sound then as fast as it appeared was gone back out into space. Pretty close to traveling horizon to horizon.

I was on watch at the time and still had to report the Causeways all secure to the bridge and figured this would be a good time to do that. On the bridge all the ships were contacting each other on what was that and such chatter. So a good many service men got to see that one.

I saw one last year around january 28.

Walking to the store. Saw this bright yellowish ball extremely low falling out of the sky.

I thought I was imagining things maybe it was ("spots") and my eyes were playing tricks on me till I looked up and my mother was looking at me and asked

"did you see that?"

I was glad I wasn't going crazy.
I just assumed it was a "rogue meteor" cause after we went home I tried searching for meteor showers and found nothing. I just moved on with life. No media Coverage we were not going to call the cops about it.

It was low as it looked to be just above power lines. But maybe a block or away. Before it fell behind the buildings it kinda just faded away. Going by my (at the time) limited space sciences education I thought it was a Meteor. It was going going pretty slow also.
I still think it was a Meteor but it makes me wonder...lol..
:

If it was going directly towards the horizon from your perspective it would appear like it was going straight down. It's kind of like the recent "missile launch" claims whereas it's just been a plane with contrails travelling directly towards the observer giving the appearance of it going straight up.

I could be wrong about this, but i'm sure, due to the way gravity affects a meteor, that they will never travel straight down.

I had the good fortune of seeing a spectacular flaming meteorite once when I was up at my astronomy club's observatory. Unfortunately I was the last one up that night and no one believed me! It streaked across the sky ike a flaming meatball and gave off "sparks". Are you sure you were not just too young to understand scale and perspective? Perhaps the meteorite was higher than you thought.

I was at a keg party when I was around 17-years-old, in El Paso, TX. This was around March of 1982, no, it was exactly March of 1982 now that I remember, as I had just graduated from High School.

It was not too late, everyone at the party was in full swing when suddenly this sound filled the air and like a "Whoosh" with a whistle and then the sky lit up with this incredible ball of light with a tail. It was west of our location, and as it came down it quivered and the sound quivered like a scream. The light shook like it was wiggling downward in a bright orange glow. Everyone, all 100 people, at one time went, "Woahhhhhhhh" as it shot downward. It lit the dark like a flare and everyone was just stopped in their tracks. Then it was over as it hit the ground west of us.

Everyone cheered and the Party went into an uproar of talk, everything from a falling star to a flare, and some said it was a firecracker, most felt it was close.

The next day it was in the newspaper, the El Paso Times, and it said that it landed west of Anthony, NM, which put it way on the other side of the Franklin Mountains.

So, to the OP, what appeared to be close may have been an illusion; you say you went back to find it and could not find broken limbs, I think you need to go out about 10 to 20 miles further and you might just locate it.

Seriously, take the time to go from point A, your viewing location, to point B by a direct line approach. You might even make a Google Map with a straight line-of-sight so that you can better keep within the actual entry spot.
Good Luck!

on a side note, this one that was witnessed in 1982 happened again in almost the same trajectory in 1997. Here is a blog with the info as the New York Times referenced page is no longer active.

Daytime Meteor startles West Texans

Interestingly also is the fact that the trajectory is just North of our viewing location, and this one was caught on radar. You can see the great distance that was covered, yet those making the reports swore it was close to them!

reply to post by Greensage


No ibeg to disagree I know the area very well and the only part of the fireball that I saw was it hitting the top of the trees a 100yrds away from me I didnt track ikt through the sky I looked up and it was crashing through the trees in front of me sparks were flying off the object as it hit the trees.

You're welcome, I will agree with your disagreement, I was merely making an observation based on my own experience! If you are convinced and you cannot find any evidence than I would say that someone came through and covered it up. Best to leave it be then.