2000-10-21 - West Manchester, OH - Cylinder

While watching jets passing overhead leaving trails in every direction in the sky, we observed an object completely disappear from the sky. It was traveling from west to east being followed by a jet aircraft leaving a significant trail behind as the jet followed the object in the same direction of west to east travel. The object ahead of the jet seemed to stop midair before it became highly luminous; casting a bright shiny, silvery glow just 5 seconds prior to disappearing in plain sight of the observers.Jets continued to fly around the area for the better part of the afternoon continuing to leave significant trails as they did.The shape of the object was only evident for a brief second before it began to glow a bright silvery color and diaappear in midair.One of the observers said it was like a pencil shape before beginning to shine brightly. The other observer thought it looked as though it was long in the middle and more dome shaped on top.The consensus of both observers is that it was not leaving a trail, did not appear to be a jet or any kind of known aircraft, and was hovering in one spot for at least 5 seconds , began to glow a silvery color and then "poof" disappeared from sight. One of the observers is a six-year Navy veteran serving the entire six years as an Aviation Electronics technician. The Navy veteran observer is familar with all types of military aircraft. The veteran observers says that the type of jet following the object was not military, it was commercial.The other observer has a medical professional background.