NUFORC Sighting 08738

Occurred: 1999-08-10 22:30 Local
Reported: 1999-08-21 00:00 Pacific
Duration: 30 seconds
No of observers: 2

Location: Westland (western suburb of Detroit), MI, USA

Shape: Light
Characteristics: Lights on object, Aura or haze around object, Left a trail

small ball of light expanded sudeenly (about 10 times its original diameter, shrunk & disappeared

My girlfriend & I were out in a field looking for Perseid activity. It was a moonless night, although there's a lot of light pollution here. As we are near Detroit Metro airport, there is a lot of air traffic. We were looking in the northeast. A ball of white light approached from the north. At first we thought nothing of it, figured it was a plane. As it approached the 10 o'clock position above us it suddenly swelled to about 10X its previous diameter. It remained at this expanded size for about 10 seconds, then started to diminish. As it approached the 11 o'clock position (almost directly overhead) it disappeared). The whole time its speed was not extraordinary. What set it apart was a lack of marker lights (no green or red flashers) & there was no sound. We see a lot of plane traffic & this was totally anomalous. It also left a trail, but was moving too slowly to be a meteor from the Perseids. Thought I'd pass it along in case there were other reports of this occurance. It gave us both goose-flesh & jitters for quite a while.

Posted 1999-08-30