Fireball over Port Matilda, PA
A witness account on file, unevaluated. Most of the archive rests here, and honestly so.
The report, as filed
It was like a street light but it flickered like a flame it was yellowish-orange to gold in color. I was very confused but anxious too. It hovered for a short time, but when I blinked it just vanished out of thin air. Mother does not believe me and cats were not scared, for it was not a street light on the highway. I went outside to check out the area but there was no evidence that something was there, it was no car though. Yours sincerely, Anonymous We suspect that the report is a hoax. We telephoned the source of the report, and spoke briefly with a young woman who simply claimed that it had not been she who submitted the report, and abruptly hung up. Hoax?? PD
Held as-reported from National UFO Reporting Center (record NUFORC #121443). 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 2015-08-20 → 2015-09-06
From the same sky