Blue-ish fireball speeds past the University of Memphis in winter of 1993-1994.
A friend of mine and I were sitting on the curb of Central Ave at the northern end of the campus of the University of Memphis around 3 or 3:30 am in either November or December of 1993 (although it could be early '94--I do know that it was pretty cold so it was sometime in the winter). No one was driving on the street or near the area we were at (virtually directly north of were the new university library is)--the area north of the campus is almost entirely residential with no bars, pool halls, or Greek houses, plus most students who are out at the strip are on the other side of campus and usually start to trickle home around 2am. Essentially, the area my friend and I were in was totally deserted despite the fact that Central is a large 5 lane road when it passes the university. The sighting began when my friend asked for a cigarette: as I held one out to him, he looked in the general direction of my hand (towards the east). Just above my hand, he later said, and down the street about a mile and a half he saw something headed our way and said "what's that?" I turned and looked and saw a blue-ish fireball about a block and a half down the street headed in our direction. This fireball was maybe 3 or 4 feet in diameter and was travelling pretty fast (approximately 40 to 50 mph) down what looked like the center line of the street. When it passed above and in front of us, we noticed that it was at a heighth about 5 or 6 feet above the telephone poles that support a traffic light set up for students crossing the street (no cross street). As it passed, the fireball made a kind of "hushed" whooshing sound: similar to that of a cardboard tube when one swings the tube like a bat, but very subdued. Also, the fireball had a short tail of blue-ish flame (about 5 feet), but left no smoke trail behind it. The fireball zipped by us and continued down the street to the west until it was out of sight. I'm not sure if what we saw was ball lightning or something different and possibly more exotic, but I thought it might be worthwhile to let somebody know about this just to see if anyone else saw the same thing...I find it hard to believe that my friend and I were the only people to have seen this thing.
A friend of mine and I were sitting on the curb of Central Ave at the northern end of the campus of the University of Memphis around 3 or 3:30 am in either November or December of 1993 (although it could be early '94--I do know that it was pretty cold so it was sometime in the winter). No one was driving on the street or near the area we were at (virtually directly north of were the new university library is)--the area north of the campus is almost entirely residential with no bars, pool halls, or Greek houses, plus most students who are out at the strip are on the other side of campus and usually start to trickle home around 2am. Essentially, the area my friend and I were in was totally deserted despite the fact that Central is a large 5 lane road when it passes the university. The sighting began when my friend asked for a cigarette: as I held one out to him, he looked in the general direction of my hand (towards the east). Just above my hand, he later said, and down the street about a mile and a half he saw something headed our way and said "what's that?" I turned and looked and saw a blue-ish fireball about a block and a half down the street headed in our direction. This fireball was maybe 3 or 4 feet in diameter and was travelling pretty fast (approximately 40 to 50 mph) down what looked like the center line of the street. When it passed above and in front of us, we noticed that it was at a heighth about 5 or 6 feet above the telephone poles that support a traffic light set up for students crossing the street (no cross street). As it passed, the fireball made a kind of "hushed" whooshing sound: similar to that of a cardboard tube when one swings the tube like a bat, but very subdued. Also, the fireball had a short tail of blue-ish flame (about 5 feet), but left no smoke trail behind it. The fireball zipped by us and continued down the street to the west until it was out of sight. I'm not sure if what we saw was ball lightning or something different and possibly more exotic, but I thought it might be worthwhile to let somebody know about this just to see if anyone else saw the same thing...I find it hard to believe that my friend and I were the only people to have seen this thing.
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Memphis
USA
few seconds
few seconds
35.12
-89.94
fireball
TN
Occurred : 6/15/1993 03:00 (Entered as : ??/??/93 03:00) Reported: 8/17/2000 03:08 Posted: 8/19/2000 Location: Memphis, TN Shape: Fireball Duration: few seconds Characteristics: The object made a sound
Blue-ish fireball speeds past the University of Memphis in winter of 1993-1994.