Fireball over Trout Creek, MT

The report, as filed

On the above stated date and time, my wife and I were in a clearing in a valley in the woods near Trout Creek, MT. My wife was standing in the middle of a raised footbridge facing South and I was at the end of the foot bridge facing North. It was pitch black, so much so that we could not see each other in the dark. We were talking quietly when my wife exclaimed, "What is that!?" I instinctively looked up as there was nothing that could be seen other than the starlit sky. I observed a very large neon green orb (fireball) with a comet like tail streaking NW over the valley at a very high rate of speed. The object was stunningly beautiful and totally silent. After it passed from view, I asked my wife to tell me what she had seen and her observation was identical to mine. My wife is a retired Mental Health Professional and I am a retired Fire Chief and former Police Officer. Approximately one year ago, while out on patrol during the night, I observed the same or a similar object traveling the exact same trajectory, only SE over Billings, MT. I checked a map of MT and both trajectories are the same, but in the opposite direction. Oddly enough when we phoned our son in Billings, he said he'd had a strange encounter with a glowing green beam of light from the sky at 03:30 on June 24, 2015, in down town BIllings on 24th St W. We will encourage him to file a report when we return home.

Held as-reported from National UFO Reporting Center (record NUFORC #119774). Witness text is preserved verbatim, including its spelling; nothing is edited beyond formatting.