2001-01-05 - North Bay, ON - Fireball

Fireball over lake Nipissng the day of MIR controlled crash

This sighting happened on the day of the MIR return, so you may know the date better than me. My husb was driving me home from work (@aprox 16:20-16:50) ant the fireball/smokeball was falling over lake Nipissing (looking WNW). There was only 1 object and it looked like a huge smokeball decendng from about 2000 feet. To approxomate the size, I would say it was 2-3 km away and could be blocked from view with a match held at arms length, but not with the head of a pin. As we drove it became obscured by trees here and there but from what we could see it fell fairly fast. As we reached the waterfront, it appeared to be 500 feet from the surface of the water when it burnt up/dissapeared from view. We jokingly assumed it was jetsam from the MIR controled crash, but seeing as that took place on the entire other side of the world... There were no plane crash or other reports that could explain that sighting. There was no debris flying off, no sparks or flame but it did have an impressive tail. It also seemed no one else had seen it. The whole sighting was 20 minutes at most.