2000-07-13 - Onalaska, WI - Fireball

2 "objects" or "fireballs" travelling at high speeds over West Central Wisconsin

At approximately 22:23 hours on 13 July 2000, I was out on my deck having a cigarette when I happened to look up at the sky and noticed the little dipper to the north. As I observed the sky, I saw a bright object much like a fireball of bluish white light streak across the sky from approximately where the little dipper is to 24"(I used a ruler for scale)south east of the constellation. The object gradually lessened in intensity and almost seemed to disappear but then I noticed it had not disappeared but had slowed and was hovering east of my home and was now about the same brightness as the surrounding stars. In fact, I thought I had lost it at first because it looked so much like a star. Then, the object began to grow brighter and brighter until it reached approximately the same color as it was when I initially saw it and zoomed off to the east. Shortly after the first "object" took off to the east, a second object which appeared to be much lower than the first crossed the sky in about the same path except lower at a high rate of speed. I would estimate that the object crossed the distance(the 24")in roughly 1 to 2 seconds. I considered all the possible explainations for what I had just seen but could find no explaination for what they were. There were no port or starboard recognition lights or beacons on these craft, they made no noise and they travelled at a very high rate of speed. The fact that the one hovered for so long before again streaking off rules out any kind of space debris burning up in the atmosphere. I am at a loss to figure it out. Thank you.