Sphere over Acworth, NH

The report, as filed

We watched this light for several minutes from the kitchen porch, and observed during that time two successive white lights drop vertically downward from the orange light. These white lights quickly faded out after their emission from the orange object, approximately 1 or 2 degrees below the object. My impression was that the white lights moved faster than one would expect for freefall, while my brother thought the motion was consistent with freefall. Somewhat excited, we raced to the roof deck for a better view. By the time we got there, a minute later, the object was no longer visible. We looked in the location of the sky where it had last been seen, which was the constellation Cassiopeia, for a minute, or so. Suddenly, a bright orange flash erupted near the middle star of the Cassiopeia constellation, that persisted for a split second. As that occurred I thought I saw a faint streak of light angling upwards at 60 degrees to the left of the flash. We observed nothing after that. When on the lower porch, earlier, we examined the object with 10 power binoculars, but it still was very small, seemingly pointlike. My brother thought it had a round shape. We considered that it might have been a Chinese lantern, with the white objects being flaming pieces of wax falling out of the lantern. But its brightness, combined with its small angular size, as seen in 10 power binoculars, seemed to exclude that possibility.

Held as-reported from National UFO Reporting Center (record NUFORC #135056). Witness text is preserved verbatim, including its spelling; nothing is edited beyond formatting.