Fireball over Crystal River, FL

The report, as filed

At Pete's Peir Marina shortly after the sun had fully set and it was completely dark I was over looking Kings Bay in Crystal River, Florida. A short ways above the the horizon due west, a red object which I initially thought was a flare due to its color and rapid movement appeared and began moving towards the east but north of my location. About ten seconds later another appeared traveling in the exact same manner. At this time I realized these were not flares due to their speed and angle of trajectory with the horizon. I then went and got my grandfather to show him and see if he knew what they could be. In that time another object appeared again in the same path and similar speed. He suggested helicopters but once they got close enough and after looking at them with binoculars it was clear they were not. Shortly after this they faded out similar to the way an old light bulb does, in about 3 seconds, each at different times and locations but in a general northern direction from our location. The last object as it was fading had another smaller and equally dim object shoot off from it in the direction it had originally come from. This however was very hard to see with the naked eye for how dim they had become and may have been a trick of the eye. This is unclear because less than a second later they were gone.

Held as-reported from National UFO Reporting Center (record NUFORC #176657). Witness text is preserved verbatim, including its spelling; nothing is edited beyond formatting.