Fireball over Winsted, CT

The report, as filed

On the evening of 9/9/14, I was at a house in Winsted, CT. I was there in a professional capacity, and am not at liberty to disclose information on the house or its resident(s). At 7:15 pm, to close approximation, I was sitting in a chair on the front porch, smoking a cigarette. I was facing due west. The sky was overcast, low-lying cumulous. From a point on the natural horizon (forested hill), west by south-west, I saw an object with the appearance of a fireball-type meteor, i.e. “burning,” orange-color, about an order of magnitude brighter than Venus. It ascended at apparent high velocity from the horizon, dead vertical. I initially thought it was a firework. It ascended at constant velocity to approximately 40 degrees celestial latitude. Then it stopped and had no motion, as though it had contacted a solid obstacle. This is to say that its velocity instantly ceased. It then had the appearance of a star in the sky, except that it was brighter than Venus, as stated. It was below the solid cloud deck. It illuminated the cloud deck, as though its radiance was omnidirectional, at least on hemispherical coordinates. This sequence of events repeated til I lost count. I approximate the total number of objects as, three dozen. When several of the objects had ascended, they formed an asymmetrical grouping, maybe five to fifteen minutes of arc separate. When several (the number was different each time) were collected, the grouping ascended up into the cloud deck, cohesively, and faded from sight per the opaqueness of the clouds. There were approximately six such groupings and ascensions. While gathered in these groupings, which resembled tight constellations of exceedingly bright stars, as if “waiting for the next one” (teleology inferred), these objects sometimes separated into two or three components. Sometimes one component would circle the other, or others, which remained stationary,then apparently rejoin and reintegrate back into a single object. Several times one object moved or was ejected from the grouping, at apparent high speed, one to several degrees of arc laterally. It then reversed direction instantaneously, like a ball deflecting off a wall, to instantly stop at its original location. The luminosity of all these objects never varied, except when several times they seemed to show internal structure, as of two or more of them fixed to a nonluminous body or frame, not inconsistent with the several lights fixed to an aircraft. This differentiation was at threshold visibility, on the order of 15 or 30 arc seconds. One time, and one time only, the differentiated light detached itself from the presumed structure of the object, circled the object and returned to its original place, before this differentiation ceased and the object again appeared as a unitary “fireball”. This entire phenomenon was soundless. There was no engine noise, or propeller chop, or any sound from this event at all. The phenomenon ceased at 8:00 pm, to very close approximation. The phenomenon was witnessed initially by myself alone, then by a resident of the house. About halfway through this event, a neighbor walked by, and I called out to him to come observe it. He then went and came back with his wife. The four of us together witnessed the last twenty minutes or so of the event. So far as the subjective, human aspect of this event, there was unanimous bewilderment, astonishment and incomprehension. I know of no airfields or military bases in that direction to, with certainty, the New York State border; I do not know with certainty of any airfields or bases in that direction whatsoever, albeit at some distance they undoubtedly exist. Because the ascension of the objects was dead vertical, and there was no variation in the luminosity of the objects, I assume the distance of their apparent origin from my location was equal to the elevation of the cloud deck, whatever that was at that time, divided by the declination of the region of the cloud deck where they vanished, which would be to say ~9/4 the elevation of the cloud deck. If called upon to guess, then if the cloud deck was ~2000 m high, the apparent origin was 4 or 5 km distant. I know that to be an area of state forest and farmland. At the beginning of this event, many coyotes at different locations began howling and wailing, and continued doing this until the end of the event, when they all simultaneously ceased. By 8:00 pm, conditions were as normal. ((ADDENDUM FROM WITNESS)) Dear Sir, Last night, 9/9/14, I submitted a report about an event that occurred a couple hours prior, in Winsted, CT. I tried to be as factual and precise as I could. But reviewing that report, I see I was sufficiently disraught to forget my high school geometry. Given the altitude of cloud deck, whatever that was, and what I reckoned a point at somewhat less than a vertical right angle, the distance from my location to the apparent origin would have been equal to, or slightly more than, the altitude of the cloud deck. I feel that this event was important. I hope that my report will not be rejected because of my error, but that this correction can be made to the report. I apologize for any convenience. ((END ADDENDUM))

Held as-reported from National UFO Reporting Center (record NUFORC #113426). Witness text is preserved verbatim, including its spelling; nothing is edited beyond formatting.