As reported

Fireball over Philipsburg, PA

A witness account on file, unevaluated. Most of the archive rests here, and honestly so.

The report, as filed

Went out on the back porch at around 6:30 pm, and looked up to a clear sky. I saw what looked to be a satellite going over and then a huge flash from it. I think it could have been an explosion with an orange color of light. At first i thought it was a reflection from the sun, but it was too big for that at that far up. The satellite continued across the sky and out of sight. Possible flare from an Iridium satellite? PD

Held as-reported from National UFO Reporting Center (record NUFORC #144778). Witness text is preserved verbatim, including its spelling; nothing is edited beyond formatting.

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Routed to: Federal Aviation Administration · records window 2019-02-01 → 2019-02-18

From the same sky

Related entries

July 26, 2019 · 9:00 PM · TRIANGLE

Philipsburg, PA

My brother and I were driving from Philipsburg, PA, to State College, PA, on Rte. 322 South, when I noticed a kite- or diamond-shaped formation of 5 or 6 bright orange balls of light flying in the sky above our car! I was astounded and asked my brother, “What was that?!” He didn’t know. So, I drove up the hill a little bit farther and turned into the Moshannon Valley Regional Business Center. I went to the back of the parking lot where it was a little darker, and we could see the entire vista of the valley facing west and northwest. We had lost sight of the kite-shaped formation, but we were amazed as one bright orange ball of light after another appeared out of the setting sun, came due east straight toward our car, banked to the left and rose simultaneously to another altitude. As they did this, one after another, their lights went completely out and they disappeared. I did happen to catch the silhouette of one after it went “lights out”, and it was shaped sort of like a big, thick war plane with wings back like a jet. But, these were not planes – there were no flashing lights like planes have (they were just bright balls of orange lights – almost like someone setting off fireworks that flew horizontally through the air – and then they each banked to the left, rose up and went black). I noticed that someone else reported the exact same thing on 07/17/19 in Altoona, PA, which is about 45 miles southwest of State College, PA where we live. Here is the experience that they reported: Bright orange big light quiet, appeared to the south moved across the sky & got dimmer then dissipated, repeated 5 times over 1/2 hour. I saw an orange light pretty bright & big sort of just appeared at a point south of my house moved across the sky towards the north, after a couple minutes kept getting less bright then sort of dissipated, no sound at all. At first I thought it was a big plane or a drone, but then another appeared at the same spot and moved across the sky and again after a few minutes it got weaker and dissipated around the same area to the north like the other one had. I got my wife out of the house and she watched it happen 3 more times with me, we both were confused at what we were seeing. This happened 5 times over about 30 minutes then it stopped. Can someone PLEASE help me and tell me that we did NOT see a UFO in the night sky last night?!?

May 27, 2019 · 5:30 AM · DISK