Fireball over Bemidji, MN
A witness account on file, unevaluated. Most of the archive rests here, and honestly so.
The report, as filed
"Fireball" red circle that hovers in sky NW between Bemidji and Red Lake. ((NUFORC Note: Possible sighting of Sirius?? PD))
Held as-reported from National UFO Reporting Center. Witness text is preserved verbatim, including its spelling; nothing is edited beyond formatting.
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Routed to: Federal Aviation Administration · records window 2012-04-14 → 2012-05-01
From the same sky
Related entries
November 23, 2023 · 5:30 PM · LIGHT
Bemidji, MN
While in my backyard, I noticed moving white light in sky, which was clear with no clouds, and very dark out. This light was very bright and shiny, and moved overhead from a W/SW direction. I used my binoculars to see any details, but it just looked like a bright white light, somewhat spherical. As it tracked above my location toward the E/NE, it seemed to move in a slightly wiggling or erratic path. As I watched, it also seemed to slow down in its path. After about 2 minutes of viewing, I went inside the house to get a coat, and watch it from the front of our house. About 30 secs later as I went to front yard (thinking it would still be in sight), it had disappeared. I didn't behave or look like a high altitude satellite, which I've seen many times before. What was noticeable was its brightness and how close it seemed to the Earth (relatively speaking). I checked the location of the International Space Station, and the ISS was not above North America, so I don't think it was that.
January 13, 2023 · 5:53 PM · LIGHT
Bemidji, MN
Walking home from work on a cold clear late dusk/early evening and was almost home, I glanced up in the sky and noticed a bright, stationary light like a star, just about a finger’s length down towards the horizon from Venus. (Later I verified that the star was indeed Venus, which was visible about 3 degrees above horizon, in W -SW direction.) The bright light was very noticeable, since it was about the apparent brightness of the star above it (Venus). Then, a second or two later as I was gazing at the light, it just seemed to dim, then darken and then disappeared completely from view. It did not seem to move as it did this, it just disappeared. Thinking there might have been a passing cloud, though as I said I could not see any clouds in the sky. Curious to see if it would reappear, I watched for several minutes more (approx. 5 min.), but light did not reappear. Strangely enough, I could see the stars coming out, verifying to my sense that it was indeed cloudless. sky. We live in a small city located in a rural area, so there is not a lot of light pollution. Other than it disappearing, it did not do anything else anomalous. I have seen other anomalous lights in the sky in our area, so am curious what this might have been. I have seen plenty of meteors, but this did not behave like I would expect a meteor to (unless a meteors coming in directly head-on towards a viewer’s position on Earth would look this way, or perhaps I was not looking up when the comet flew across the sky to the point I observed it at? I think I would have seen something of the comet’s tail, in that case)
May 15, 2022 · 10:33 PM · LIGHT
Bemidji, MN
While I was watching the lunar eclipse with my binoculars, it was a very clear, starry night, with very few clouds. A little bit earlier I had watched a satellite overhead, then noticed another very bright light in sky. I immediately thought that it must be the ISS, because it was so bright and was tracking in a relatively straight line E to NE quadrant of sky. There was no sound at all, so knew it wasn’t a plane, and it seemed like it was higher altitude than a plane would be. As I tracked with binoculars, the light’s apparent motion seemed to “slow down” in that it never left the NE quadrant of the sky it was in. It no longer behaved like a “normal” satellite that goes straight across from horizon to horizon. It kept getting lower and lower in the sky (but not dimmer), which made me think from its apparent motion that it had changed direction, and was moving away from my position/vantage point. After a couple of minutes, it disappeared beyond the horizon. The light or object or whatever it was, was quite bright the most of the time I saw it. It went from being a “stable” light that didn’t flicker or jostle as it moved, to then starting to “jostle” and move around (like the tip of a sparkler when you wave it around). That’s how it looked in the binocs, at least. I did not behave like a comet, meteor, or anything like that.
May 15, 2021 · 11:05 PM · CHANGING
Bemidji, MN
Getting out of our car in our backyard on a clear night, many stars being visible, my wife and I look up to see an amorphous group of lights, almost like one body but seemed to have several lights w/in it. It was in the northern sky, traveling NE in a pretty straight line tack. They seemed fairly high in the sky, and could tell the group of lights was moving fairly quickly since I had only about 10 or 20 secs to view in my binoculars (which I happened to have with me), before they was obscured our neighbor’s roof. My wife described the group of lights as almost looking like a caterpillar, the way it slithered across sky path; they did not seem at all like a “normal” satellite or meteorites that we have seen many times. The group of moving lights were sort of “smudgy” or glowing like some comets we’ve seen, but it was obviously within the atmosphere (not a very far away as a comet would be). It seemed to move too slowly to be a meteorite. I ran to see if I could view it from our front yard, but about 10 seconds later, it was lost in a cloud on horizon.
October 8, 2020 · 3:25 AM · CIRCLE
Bemidji, MN
Saw a bright object in southeast sky, Appeared to be moving to a more southeasterly direction. Seemed to stop and start moving. Slowly disappeared over window towards westerly direction. Looked at Star map to try and identify if star or other object. Stars don’t move fast.
April 25, 2020 · 10:35 PM · SPHERE
Bemidji, MN
My wife and I were sitting in our backyard after putting out the fire in the fire pit. As we were finishing up and getting ready to go in the house, I turned and saw a bright globular light in the SE part of the sky. We live in the central part of a small city in Northern MN, so there is not much light pollution. I immediately asked my wife - do you see that light in the sky? because it was very noticeable. It was orange in color, almost looked like a ball of fire, but very steady and bright. The movement of the object in the sky was quite distinctive because at firs t I thought it might be a plane or helicopter…it’s speed was fairly similar to that of an airplane, but it made absolutely no noise. At the point that I realized that it was not an airplane or any craft I was familiar with - in fact, I couldn’t see any real detail at all, other than it was globe-shaped and mostly a shiny orange color, with maybe some fluctuation in intensity. I asked my wife if she was seeing this bright object too. We both tracked it across the sky as it traveled NE to SW in a very straight line. It did not turn or make any sudden moves, it moved quite steadily along a direct path. It did not float or move erratically. It was low enough that it was below the cloud deck, the sky was overcast. I can’t say exactly the object’s altitude was, other than it seemed to be about what a low-flying plane might be, but high enough in the sky to be close to the lower part of the cloud deck. In fact, our house is under the main flight path of the airport for our small city, but the flight path is SE to NW, not NE to SW. The light travelled above the house behind ours, still making no noise at all and clipping along at a steady pace. I tried to follow it further, but it disappeared from view. My wife and I both saw this object and we both agreed that what we saw was not a plane. My wife said she that at first she thought it was a planet, because the object was so bright. We both saw that it was spherical in shape and mainly orange colored. She also brought up the idea of it being a satellite, but we both agreed that this object was way too low to be a satellite in orbit around the earth. I highly doubt that this was a StarLink satellite, and it was just the one object. I’m a professional who works in academia and am not prone to seeing things that aren’t there. My wife is also a very level-headed professional. I was astounded by what I saw. I’ve been reading about and researching UFO’s and wondering about what they might be for the last few years, but I’ve never seen anything like this.