Changing over Middleborough, MA

The report, as filed

I took my dog out into the back yard to do her business. On the way back in a bright light caught my eye. At first I thought it was an airplane. However, I’m familiar with the flight patterns in my area and this light was not in one of the normal flight paths. In fact I could see a plane to the left heading toward Logan Airport and another further to the right leaving Logan or heading toward TF Greene. Initially, the light was amber colored and seemed very high in altitude. However, its brightness was about twice that of the airplanes. The light was solid and not strobing. It appeared to be somewhat cross-shaped, but I wasn’t sure if it might’ve just been light refraction. There were scattered low-level clouds but none blocked the view. The light travelled from north-north-east and toward the south-south-east from my perspective. The light travelled at approximately the same speed as an high altitude plane. Within 5-10 seconds the light started loosing intensity and the color faded to white. After about another 10 seconds of the light slowly losing its intensity it was nothing more than a pinpoint of light no bigger than a very small star. Within a second it faded to complete darkness and I lost sight of it. The entire episode was about 15-20 seconds in duration. I have seen hundreds of shooting stars in my life. If this was a shooting star it moved far slower than any I’ve ever seen and did not have a tail. I’m in my mid-50’s, have a post-graduate degree, am a professional, have a wife and children, and have never seen anything I’ve considered completely inexplicable in the air before.

Held as-reported from National UFO Reporting Center (record NUFORC #142530). Witness text is preserved verbatim, including its spelling; nothing is edited beyond formatting.