1998-11-03 - Mesa, AZ - Fireball

Large yellow orange fireball gliding across the sky ejected a small fireball straight down beneath it.

Early November I witnessed an object gliding across the night sky moving SE across Mesa, AZ. It appeared to be a yellow orange fireball with a medium tail trailing behind moving faster than an aircraft going away from me. The angle from horizon to overhead was 70 degrees when I spotted it. As it moved towards the horizon and got farther away, what appeared to be another very small round fireball was ejected straight down beneath this object and appeared to burn up and tnen disappeared as it separated a distance below the larger object. The larger object continued on its path for a few minutes until at about 20 degrees from the horizon it suddenly disappeared. It instantly vanished as quick as you could snap your fingers. The object made no movements other than a straight glide across the sky and was bright making it clearly visible. As I am involved with astronomy I am certain it was not a meteor, comet or a satellite burning up in the atmosphere because those objects move rapidly through it and the burn rate is quite quick. A comet that close would have caused destruction as this object was in the lower level of the atmosphere. Since the object made no sound at all which it would have that close it was not a meteor. Additionally the object moved too slow for a meteor or comet or satellite. It was not an aircraft in trouble because the object moved too fast with no sound. The shape was definitely a compact ball! I have checked various professional astronomy resources and have received no explanations as yet. The object appeared to be too low to have skipped off or grazed the atmosphere and then back out into space. My background is that of 31 years as a teacher in ((technical field deleted)) science and presently ((title/company deleted)) Institute, Inc.- MS degree plus 15 graduate hours in Astro-Physics.