Fireball over Victor, ID

The report, as filed

I am a 34 year old male. Healthy. We live in a valley located in between two mountain ranges, the tetons and the palisades. It was a cold, very clear night. I was laying in bed watching tv when I noticed what looked like a chinese lantern on fire floating quickly through the sky. Being able to see this at the angle, I could see out my window, led me to believe that it was fairly close and of low altitude. In the day time, the object was lower on the horizon than the mountains. Once I saw it go by the mountains, I immediately jumped up, ran through the living room, and out the back door. All the while screaming at my girlfriend and live in mother to come look. As we all got out to the back deck it had moved further north. It seemed as it was kinda bobbing around and then suddenly took a sharp linear move to the west. At that point we all knew that it wasn't a flaming lantern, but something that was actual ly piloted. At that point it stopped and hovered in the same spot for around 2 min. While it was hovering, we could see that it was actually spinning and looked to be emitting what wasn't fire, but energy? It was really eerie, as we all got a feeling that it saw us. It stayed in this spot until, I physically watched it leave our atmosphere quicker than I could ever imagine. We first thought it was a balloon or something that someone had set on fire. However, we all quickly realized that it wasn't just floating, but moving in a determined path. It was completely silent, and at times looked as if it could be disc shaped.

Held as-reported from National UFO Reporting Center (record NUFORC #137711). Witness text is preserved verbatim, including its spelling; nothing is edited beyond formatting.