A bright flash seen in the sky facing west, 60 degrees above the horizon, heading downward from right to left, leaving a trail.
I was standing outside on the porch of the home where I work as a night shift private duty nurse. I was facing approximately north when the entire surrounding area lit up brightly for several seconds. I began looking toward the garage to my left on the property to see if a spotlight had been turned on. While turning, I noticed a bright light coming from high up shining through a tree in the yard. I stepped to my left to see the light without the tree being in the way. I was facing approximately west. At about sixty degrees above the horizon, I could see a bright trail angled down from right to left terminating in a bright mass. When I held my hand at arm's length, the length of the mass and tail together was roughly that of my index finger. Within a few seconds, the light from the object had faded. I did not notice any smoke remaining after the flash faded. My first thought was that perhaps it was an exceptionally large meteorite. I have seen numerous meteorites in my lifetime, but have never seen anything light up my surroundings like this did. I then wondered if it might have been an Iridium satellite deorbiting. The thought that there was a space shuttle mission recently launched to the international space station made me wonder if there could have been an accident associated with that, although the notion clearly seemed like a stretch of the imagination. I decided to report the object to the National UFO Reporting Center in hopes of perhaps finding a means of identifying what I had seen.
I was standing outside on the porch of the home where I work as a night shift private duty nurse. I was facing approximately north when the entire surrounding area lit up brightly for several seconds. I began looking toward the garage to my left on the property to see if a spotlight had been turned on. While turning, I noticed a bright light coming from high up shining through a tree in the yard. I stepped to my left to see the light without the tree being in the way. I was facing approximately west. At about sixty degrees above the horizon, I could see a bright trail angled down from right to left terminating in a bright mass. When I held my hand at arm's length, the length of the mass and tail together was roughly that of my index finger. Within a few seconds, the light from the object had faded. I did not notice any smoke remaining after the flash faded. My first thought was that perhaps it was an exceptionally large meteorite. I have seen numerous meteorites in my lifetime, but have never seen anything light up my surroundings like this did. I then wondered if it might have been an Iridium satellite deorbiting. The thought that there was a space shuttle mission recently launched to the international space station made me wonder if there could have been an accident associated with that, although the notion clearly seemed like a stretch of the imagination. I decided to report the object to the National UFO Reporting Center in hopes of perhaps finding a means of identifying what I had seen.
No
No
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No
Off
No
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No
No
Yes
Philadelphia
USA
3-5 seconds
3-5 seconds
39.99
-75.15
changing
PA
Occurred : 9/9/2000 03:30 (Entered as : 09/09/00 03:30) Reported: 9/9/2000 09:49 Posted: 9/17/2000 Location: Philadelphia, PA Shape: Changing Duration: 3-5 seconds Characteristics: The object left a trail
A bright flash seen in the sky facing west, 60 degrees above the horizon, heading downward from right to left, leaving a trail.