NUFORC Sighting 73369

Occurred: 2009-11-17 22:00 Local
Reported: 2009-11-18 10:33 Pacific
Duration: 2 minutes
No of observers: 1

Location: Manhattan, MT, USA

Shape: Other
Characteristics: Left a trail

Thin bright line streaking across the sky, then stops.

Looking east and very slightly north from my back door at about 45 degrees up, stars in the background I saw what looked like a streak of light, almost like a bright con trail but thinner. It was above the peaks of the Bridger Mountains but much closer to where I was, possibly over Belgrade. It moved from NW to SE very quickly. There was absolutely no sounds. It's very quiet here; I can hear planes taking off from the airport sometimes and I'm about 8 air miles from the runway.

It was a cold night with scattered clouds to my west. There were house lights in the area but it was very dark in the direction I saw this. I think the moon was up, to my south, but I can't remember.

The approximate size was about 300 feet across, looking left to right. Not sure of other dimensions. It reminded me of the cigar shaped objects I've seen in CG reports but thinner. Since I only saw what looked like a reflection, I can't be certain of the shape.

I looked further right and the light or object seemed to stop. It was almost hovering over Bozeman then disappeared after a very short time, possibly a minute. Within 1 minute of it vanishing, a plane approached the area from the SE.

Upon further investigation I can't be certain of what I saw. I do wear glasses and even though I tried to repeat my movements that I made immediately prior to seeing this I could not see the same or anything similar.

Posted 2009-12-12