1999-12-05 - Dalton, GA - Circle

A bright yellow object traveling from west to east, ending in a bright flash

I was traveling south on a residential street, when out of the corner of my eye I saw a yellow "ball". The object was circular with a lime-green "corona"(I guess you'd call it). It sort of resembled a fire ball, yellow center with the lime-green surrounding it and a very short green tail. At first I thought I was just seeing a street light or some kind of reflection, so I did a double-take. When I looked back, I could clearly see that it wasn't a street light, but rather something that was definately air-born. It traveled directly from west to east, decending at approximately a 45 degree angle to the ground. I only saw the object for a few seconds, and then it just seemed to disappear with an extremely bright flash. At the time it disappeared, I thought that it must have been a crash of some kind due to the flash. It appeared to be about 5 miles south of my location and the diameter was about the same as the length of a Boeing 727 at 5 miles. Since it appeared to be so close, I drove to a nearby ridge which was about 3 mile SSE of my location. From that vantage point, I had an unobstructed view of over 15 miles in all directions. I saw nothing of a plane crash or and king of brush fire that I would expect from a meteorite of that size.(The color also ruled out a meteorite to me because every comet or meteorite I have ever seen is either white or a whitish-blue color. I didn't really give it much thought until later that morning when I was traveling with my father and happened to mention the experience to him. We both had a good laugh and chalked it up to lack of sleep and went on discussing other matters. About 15 minutes later, there was a newsbrief from an Atlanta radio station which said that several people, most notably a couple of Atlanta firemen, had reported seeing a strange light in the sky a little after 5 that morning. They were just getting off work and heading home to Ellijay, which means they were traveling north when they saw it. If we all saw the same thing, it must have been larger, brighter, and further south than I had first thought. Later that night, the TV news said that the National Weather Service in Atlanta said that what the firemen saw was a meteor. That was the last I heard of the incident. I am in my late twenties, have a college degree, and run my own business. I have always had a real love for aviation, especially military aircraft. I have family members that have made careers in the military, and through those connections have learned alot about the aircraft we are currently flying. On several occasions I have tried to discuss those that don't officially exist, such as the projects profiled in periodicals such as Janes Defence, usually getting responses like, "Now where did you read that?", or more often, "Sometimes truth is stranger than fiction." I have personally witnessed F15s, F16a, F4s, A10s, B1-Bs, F117s, B2s, and even F22s(which is being developed at Lockeed in Atlanta) in flight both during daylight and at night. All I can tell you is that whatever it was I saw that morning was nothing I have ever seen before. That's not to say it wasn't ours -- but it it was ours it's nothing that has ever been publicly acknowledged or even speculated on in any military or aviation journal I've ever read. It was truly a UFO -- an Unidentified Flying Object. I found your website after seeking information on this subject and debated whether or not to tell my seemingly insignificant story. But here I am nearly two weeks later, and what I saw is still as vivid in my mind as it was that morning. What bothers me is that I just haven't heard any more concerning the incident, and the Nt'l Weather Service's explaination of a "meteorite" just doesn't wash. I ask that my name or personal information not be revealed, I seek no notariety, I just hope that I can make some small contribution toward solving this puzzle.