Flash of Light, followed by a orange fireball
I was out camping at Bonita Lake with my family. I could not sleep so I got up and look at the clock and it was 02:30. I walked outside to the campfire to have a smoke. Earlier that evening there were thunderstorms, but the skies were clear at the time of the sighting. After about ten minutes a flash lit up the campground as if it was daylight, I look up and saw what appeared to be a shooting star with a long tail behind it moving Northeast. It was not as fast as your normal shooting star, because if I had actually seen a flash from a real shooting star against the ground, by the time I look up the star would have already been gone. The whole sighting lasted approximately 7 seconds. About 2-3 minutes later I heard one single boom. Then I knew for sure it was not a shooting star because I had heard what appeared to be an explosion. Earlier that evening, my family and I were watching lightening flashes and counting the seconds after the flash. I told my son I believe for every second the lightening is a mile away. If this is true than the explosion had to be between 120-180 miles away. I looked on the CNN website today to see if we had lost any satellites, but there were none. My brother had asked me how high I thought the object was, the only thing I could tell him is it appeared to be much lower than a shooting star. There were no running lights and the object turned into a orange fireball with a tail of 1/3 of the skies length.
I was out camping at Bonita Lake with my family. I could not sleep so I got up and look at the clock and it was 02:30. I walked outside to the campfire to have a smoke. Earlier that evening there were thunderstorms, but the skies were clear at the time of the sighting. After about ten minutes a flash lit up the campground as if it was daylight, I look up and saw what appeared to be a shooting star with a long tail behind it moving Northeast. It was not as fast as your normal shooting star, because if I had actually seen a flash from a real shooting star against the ground, by the time I look up the star would have already been gone. The whole sighting lasted approximately 7 seconds. About 2-3 minutes later I heard one single boom. Then I knew for sure it was not a shooting star because I had heard what appeared to be an explosion. Earlier that evening, my family and I were watching lightening flashes and counting the seconds after the flash. I told my son I believe for every second the lightening is a mile away. If this is true than the explosion had to be between 120-180 miles away. I looked on the CNN website today to see if we had lost any satellites, but there were none. My brother had asked me how high I thought the object was, the only thing I could tell him is it appeared to be much lower than a shooting star. There were no running lights and the object turned into a orange fireball with a tail of 1/3 of the skies length.
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Yes
Ruidoso
USA
10 seconds
10 seconds
33.35
-105.65
flash
NM
Occurred : 7/12/2001 02:30 (Entered as : 07/12/01 02:30) Reported: 7/12/2001 23:14 Posted: 8/5/2001 Location: Ruidoso (Bonita Lake), NM Shape: Flash Duration: 10 seconds Characteristics: The object left a trail
Flash of Light, followed by a orange fireball