Fireball over Litchville, ND

The report, as filed

On the 29th of December 2017, at close to 5:32 pm, I saw a Burning object skirting across the southern sky at about the 4 o'clock position flying above a cloud bank that was on the edge of the North and South Dakota borders. I live about 40 miles north of the South Dakota Border and Skies were clear. I was watching a few deer I feed in my farm yard and it was dark enough only to see them closely with a pair of good Binoculars. As I was watching them, I noticed a burning object in the top of the lens flying across the sky what I thought was about 30-40 miles away and left the most large contrail I have ever seen dark like the clouds it was flying over. It had a flame that looked like a burning oil well fire like you lit a farmers match but real black contrail. At first I thought it was something burning up coming into our atmosphere and coming or flying in a North East Direction, but it was flying parallel to the clouds then started to fly upward in a north east direction and once it got up in the sky the object turned into just a bright light no flames I could see any more. It flew up to a tiny spec and then was lost in the stars that were just coming out to see at an 11:00 position looking south. I could not tell any form. It was just luck I had seen this but was quite a thing to see. I live on a farm in a very remote area and have no light pollution. I reported this to a local radio station and he read my email on air. I wanted to see if anyone else had seen it and there were no responses. This would be my 3rd object I have seen over the years I have lived here. Always looking for our visitors in the skies.

Held as-reported from National UFO Reporting Center (record NUFORC #138777). Witness text is preserved verbatim, including its spelling; nothing is edited beyond formatting.