NUFORC Sighting 72660

Occurred: 2009-06-29 21:15 Local
Reported: 2009-09-29 10:54 Pacific
Duration: 9 minutes
No of observers: 1

Location: Sarasota, FL, USA

Shape: Unknown
Characteristics: Changed Colo

During a severe storm this looked like a fire in the sky

Fire in the Sky Date June 29, 2009 time at first sighting 9:15 PM EDT This was during a severe thunderstorm that contained heavy winds,and rain that was mixed with fairly large hail at times.

I was watching TV from my couch when the electricity went off. I then opened the 2 windows in front of this couch to let in the cool air from the storm.

As I knelt there, watching the storm through the screen, my eye caught a flash of color in all this dark greyness. The palms were being whipped by the ,at times,40 to 50 mph wind and the other trees branches were swaying so anything not tied down would have been whisked away.

Angle of Observation In the front of the house is a large tree at the bottom of the driveway. The house rises at a 30 degree angle up from the road and base of the tree.

Looking out through a gap in this tree was,. what I thought,.. a plane on fire surely hit by lightning during this storm.

This is key now, my reasoning being there is nothing but big open sky beyond this tree at the altitude of my line of sight.

This is upwards almost another 30 degree angle at most. This bright fiery thing was not very high up but lower than the glider people that fly over our house during tourist season.. I could not tell how far away this was from my house as I have nothing to use as a gauge.

In this area you have to go downtown, ten miles, to see anything tall only 2 buildings.that are impossible to see from here.

As I watched, this orangey red pulsating thing, our fire house sirens went off,.. so it was a plane then ? However, this thing never fell but hovered in the same spot so that it was now past 6 minutes according to my watch.

If it was a plane it would not continue to hover in the same place.

What troubled me a lot was, it suddenly flashed an extremely bright red around the edges..,twice,.. as if it were winking at me and my hair stood on end and I got the weirdest sensation, it knew I was watching it. Crazy feeling.

I then ran to get my little camcorder but fumbling I only got the lightning flashes and my cursing that I missed it.

Result I never had a good enough look to see the whole shape of it. Going outside was a definite danger.

It did scare me so I at one point I closed the curtains. This all lasted 9 minutes. The lights came back on the storm waned and when I looked out it was gone.

I wonder if anyone else saw anything that night.

Posted 2009-12-12