NUFORC Sighting 47330

Occurred: 2005-10-31 21:17 Local
Reported: 2005-10-31 18:28 Pacific
Duration: 5-10 seconds
No of observers: 1

Location: Charlottesville, VA, USA

Shape: Fireball
Characteristics: Left a trail

Bright fiery contrail in eastern night sky

Looking east on my way into the house tonight, I saw a long contrail of light/flame across quite a bit of the sky. Too high to be a firework.

I could vaguely still make out a smoke plume where it occurred for a minute or so afterward. Looked like the space shuttle taking off in the night sky only it was straight across the sky, not going up from the ground.

NUFORC Note:

Witness describes self as a "pilot." Our suspicion is that he is a quite experienced pilot, with many thousands of hours of flight time. However, that is just a guess on our part. PD

Posted 2005-11-03