Fireball over Mattawa, WA
A witness account on file, unevaluated. Most of the archive rests here, and honestly so.
The report, as filed
Gold fireball with tail, broke up, but continued downward close to Hanford Nuclear Site.
Held as-reported from National UFO Reporting Center. Witness text is preserved verbatim, including its spelling; nothing is edited beyond formatting.
Ask for the records
What would the paper say?
For a dated, located U.S. sighting, FAA radar data and ATC communications are the records most likely to exist. Through Aletheca, the house instrument, anyone can commission the request — filed, chased, and published in the open, refusals included. The draft goes over already written: the records sought, and the date window they would live in.
Routed to: Federal Aviation Administration · records window 2002-08-25 → 2002-09-11
From the same sky
Related entries
March 11, 2021 · 5:00 AM · CYLINDER
Mattawa, WA
At approximately 4:55 a.m. on Thursday, March 11, 2021 I was outside looking at the night sky. It was very dark with bright stars when I saw a long cylinder of bright lights coming from the Southwest headed to the Northeast. At first I thought it was a really bright shooting star, but soon realized it wasn’t. It stayed at a constant slow speed and did not have a tail like a shooting star would. I woke my husband and he saw it as it passed almost over our home, about the height it seemed of a low flying military carrier might. We both described it as a long straight tube with about a dozen circular lights in it. It was not one solid light, there was space between each bright light within the cylinder. Relating it to things we know, it looked like a piece of rope light that was perfectly straight moving through the sky. It lasted around a minute and a half and disappeared over the Northeast horizon .
February 2, 2000 · 6:00 PM · OTHER
Mattawa, WA
Orange Jet?, but thicker, not streamlined. Really orange. Odd contrail, like three going out like a fan. Going West to East, with low
November 14, 1998 · 7:30 PM · DISK
Mattawa, WA
Disk flew over raodway, unlit except from reflection of car lights