NUFORC Sighting 13390

Occurred: 2000-07-01 22:30 Local
Reported: 2000-07-11 00:00 Pacific
Duration: 1-3 minutes
No of observers: 2

Location: Sierra Nevada Mtns (Big Five Lakes), CA, USA

Shape: Unknown
Characteristics: Aura or haze around object, Left a trail, Changed Colo

Extremely large fireball with gas trailing behind it for at least a minute and appeared as if it was going to crash.

On July 1 at approximately 10:30pm PDT while backpacking, I observed an enormous explosive fireball with much gas trailing behind it over the sky for what seemed to be a very long time--at least a minute. It appeared in the west and travel northeast as it continued to burn bigger and brighter, and then seemed to be burning up. It seemed to be altering its' path, not following a straight trajectory. It seemed as if it was going to crash. There was no sound that accompanied the phenomenon.It was enormous in size even though it appeared to be very far out in space.This was visible from an altitude of over 10,000 feet in the Sierra Nevada mountain range in California and it appeared to go down in the desert area somewhat east of Mt. Whitney as it disappeared out of our sight behind a group of mountains. I have never witnessed anything like this ever, and it was way too big to be any ordinary plane crash. If it was a meteor of any type certainly it would have been reported by the media. I am interested in knowing if anyone else saw this phenomena, and what kind of explanation there could be.

Posted 2000-07-23