NUFORC Sighting 80977

Occurred: 1994-06-05 00:35 Local - Approximate
Reported: 2011-04-22 20:06 Pacific
Duration: <15 seconds
No of observers: 3

Location: McDonough, GA, USA

Shape: Other
Characteristics: Left a trail

I and two others saw a reddish orange ball of light with a tail traveling through the night sky under clouds while fishing.

I had come home from Ellsworth AFB, South Dakota, to enjoy a couple of weeks at home in Georgia. One evening, my brother, my girlfriend, and I decided to go fishing for catfish at a local pay lake in Henry County. We started fishing around 9:00 PM that evening. We hadn’t had much luck. We only caught a couple of small cats about twelve inches or so. My brother had been fishing there before, and he told us that the fishing usually started picking up around midnight. My girlfriend, who was also in Air Force at the time, was ready to go. However, my brother and I talked her into sticking it out with us.

That night, the moon was bright enough so that we could see the top of the tree line against the sky just beyond the damn of the lake. The night sky was littered with patches of clouds all around. Sometime after midnight, we all saw this object in the sky. We were looking in the direction of the damn which was to our right. I believe the damn was to the North of our location. I can’t be sure, as I had never been to the lake before. The object was a reddish orange oval shape that had some sort of a tail or exhaust in the same color as the object itself. It wasn’t like any light that I had ever seen before or since. It didn’t have a constant solid light color as most lights do. Instead, it seemed to be more like a ball of lava. I don’t want to say that it was like a ball of fire, because it had a cooler appearance, almost like the stuff in a lava lamp. The object was at a lower altitude than the clouds. It did not make a sound at all as it moved through the sky. We watched it! for approximately 10 to 15 seconds as it continued its straight path through the night sky. The tail maintained the same distance from the body of the object the entire time. We finally lost sight of it to the farthest right part of the sky.

I have seen all types of aircraft flying at night during my time in the Air Force. I was in Desert Storm, and I was an aircraft armament systems specialist. My duties were on the flight line. I have seen shooting stars and meteors before. I also know what a comet looks like, and they aren’t within our atmosphere the way this thing was. This was something that none of us had ever seen before. My brother and I were talking about it just the other day, and I finally decided to tell someone to see if they had an answer.

NUFORC Note:

Witness indicates that the date of the sighting is approximate. PD

Posted 2011-05-02