2003-10-18 - Knoxville, TN - Circle

Large seemingly round object burning up with tail that dissipated towards end of sight, too big to miss,orange tail

My wife alerted me to something she saw in the sky to the south, southeast of our home saying "Honey, What is that thing in the sky?." I was working on my truck and didn't want to get up for nothing because of back problems, but with her insistence I got up and looked toward Maryville, TN; There was an orange ball falling from the sky with a tail (orange)that was traveling at what must have been an incredible speed. If you would stretch your arm out and compare the distance between your forefinger and your thumb, it was about an inch long. This object had quite a tail on it for the first 45 seconds or so, then it seemed to dissipate to a certain extent as the object came further towards the ground but the tail flared up in the same orange color on several occasions. At this point I would have to guess its altitude at 2 miles, maybe less. I figured that maybe it was a satellite coming out of orbit, but the funny thing is that it was very close to McGhee-Tyson airport. I called them and they said they'd seen nothing at seven o'clock, Saturday, October the eighteenth, two thousand and three. The guy I talked to seemed interested and said he'd call me back. For whatever it's worth, we saw this very thing and it was cool. I've never seen anything like it except in movies or science news. My background is that I've always loved the sciences,fairly smart and am happy that I witnessed this falling object that no one seems to know anything about. Thanks. Wish that I'd have gotten my camera but I thought it would be on the news about a satellite going down or a meteorite.