2002-12-29 - Las Vegas, NV - Fireball

A comet shaped object, with a bright tail vanishing to a spot

We were coming back from Las Vegas to San Diego and we saw this thing, comet shaped, injecting a fire kind of light at the tail. It was there in the sky for approximately 5 minutes, and moving but it left no trail. The injection of the fire kind of thing vanished gradually in +/- 30 sec to a black dot. And the sky was clear as if it was never there. Surprisingly the light or the fire was so bright that it was noticable even at 2:00 in the afternoon. We managed to get a couple of pictures of this thing.


((FOLLOW-UP FROM WITNESS))

Hallo Mr. Davenport,

Thanks for your reply. But I am almost sure that it is not a jet trail and hence some more clarification would be appreciated.

The reason is that I have been in India near a Military base and have seen lots of jet trails and that's why I am so sure of the fact that it cannot be a jet trail.

I have seen the jet trails from lots of aircrafts and am a regular watcher of Wings. So I would really appreciate some more explanation if you could provide so.

Also as I mentioned it vanished from the air in less than a minute which is quite unlikely for a jet trail since they persist for a longer duration because of the density differences of the water which is
ejected out and the atmosphere.

Thanks and regards ((name deleted))

((END))