1999-11-16 - Mount Washington, KY - Fireball

A large fireball type object appeared to be falling from the sky. As we watched the fireball began tilting upward instead of falling and then did a circle and flew towards the southwest.

My parents, and my son and I were driving down Bardstown Rd. heading from our small city of Mt. Washington into the city of Louisville which we are about 10 miles or so south of. We were headed northeast on Bardstown Rd. and my son said look a plane is falling. I looked out the window and immediately got excited because I've never seen any type of plane that would be that distance in the sky above appear that large. We are in an airpath that routinely has airplanes fly over our house night and day. We've lived in this same house for 23+ years so I know what the normal planes look like in this area. This looked like a big fireball falling from the sky. It was a color of light orange and had like a ripply haze around it. Whethere this haze was the effect of the setting sun or not I can't be sure. My mother said it looked to her like something out of the movie Armageddon. This fireball was going in a course straight down. My father argued it was just a plane going over the horizon but he could get a proper look at it since he was driving the vehicle. My mother, my son and I continued to watch this fireball spellbound. I can't say for certain the exact height this fireball was in the sky but I know it appeared to be above where the planes usually fly. If I strectched my arm out the fireball would have been at least the size of my fist. If it was any smaller than that it wouldn't be by much. Now as I said my father argued it was an aircraft going over the horizon. Keep in mind that it was still daylight here as we were watching this fireball in the sky. The sun was starting to settle in the horizon and the sky was still pretty light. It got dark maybe a half hour or so later. Now as my mother, son and I were watching this fireball go down, i noticed a shift as did both of them. The fireball changed from a falling pattern, went up about a 90 degree angle then it completed a loop and moved off in a southwestern position. We were floored. This fireball was clearing falling straight down and then did what was a! basic l oop and headed a new direction. There were no planes in the area at all either that we could see. Just this lone fireball trailing it's tail. It was about that time that we went up a hill on Bardstown Rd and around a curve and could no longer see the fireball in the sky. Later this night after we returned back to our home I watched our 11pm news on Channel 11 broadcast from Louisville Ky and found that the story had made the nightly news. They of course reported that it was either a meteor(which there is no way.this thing was way too large) or that it was falling space debree. Since I've never seen space debree fall I've no idea but space debree doesn't do loops in midair to any of my knowledge. Also on this newscast on Channel 11 they had a State Trooper from Seymour, Indian on there. He actually got this object on video tape except it was darker when he taped it as he said it was 7:00 PM or so and you can see different colored lights in the fireballs tail. He also said on the news as I told you that he'd never seen anything like it. If I can help with anymore info please contact me. I'm also a commercial artist so if a sketch of this thing and the loop it did would help you let me know and I'll do one and email it out to you.