Unknown over Lake Shelbyville, IL
A witness account on file, unevaluated. Most of the archive rests here, and honestly so.
The report, as filed
Then we see the strangest thing. A meteor shoot up from the horizon. Never seen that before. But figuring the earth is round, sure. About three minutes later (the whole time the iPhone clicking away) we see a almost horizontal fireball shoot across the sky. But instead of a straight trajectory it shoots in a strange curved almost "u" shape. But instead of the common burn out on most meteors it just blinks out. We give each other a high five excited we both saw it. It was very bright. High altitude. Faster then anything I have ever seen in the night sky. But unusual in its trajectory. We talk about it. Stay out till 1 am and collect our phones and go to bed. As I'm laying in bed, I see I caught a series from one fireball. I note the first three captures at 12:01. Progressive fireball. Again. There was no other light source near us to reflect anything. This was all high altitude. And we never noticed the object. However we were getting up and moving around and there were moments we were not staring at the sky. I tried zooming on the object. Unable to identify. And although it was pitch black except for the stars I can't explain it. If you notice. The stars in the background are crisp. If it were an image of a blurred star all of the stars would be blurred. The biggest hangup was the speed at which the previous "meteor" was traveling, and its obvious altitude. And how it traveled in almost a cursive u course. How bright it was and the way its "tail" hung in the sky, as if it were almost drawn with a white glowing pen. I'm not sure we were meant to see this. I'm not even sure what it is. However, I do feel people fail to notice these things because they don't take the time to sit three hours staring at the sky. Any thoughts?
Held as-reported from National UFO Reporting Center (record NUFORC #135889). Witness text is preserved verbatim, including its spelling; nothing is edited beyond formatting.
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Routed to: Federal Aviation Administration · records window 2017-08-18 → 2017-09-04