2004-06-07 - Crestview, FL - Circle

It was an amazingly clear, calm night, 3/4 moon and no wind or breeze. My husband, my 2 sons, and I went outside for a late night walk and as soon as we reached the road my husband and I saw a bright white light in the sky right above the treetops traveling from the north heading southward and at first we thought it was a plane, jet, or helicopter but when we stopped to watch it we noticed that there were absolutely no sounds what so ever coming from the object. We then looked more closely at it after realizing that it was not a plane and noticed that there was a red streak type tail off the back of it coming to a point. It traveled steady and parallel to the earth for about 30 seconds and then it just faded to just a red light, seemed to almost stop, then disappear completely. We were in "awe" and somewhate disbelief of what we saw and didn't even mention it to our boys due to the fact that they are 10 and 6 and that would have been the end of our late night walks. I have never seen anything like that and neither has my husband. I know that Venus passed by the sun the next day so is it possible that Venus was able to be seen the evening before also? It looked alot like a shooting star or meteor with the exception that it was alot larger, brighter, and was traveling horizonally instead of vertically and seemed to be just above the treetops. I could not even begin to tell you how high or how big the object was but if you hold your index fingers together and your thumbs together to form a circle and extend you arms all the way out, that is aproximately how large it was in relation to where it was located and how far away it was. It could have been a large object very far away or a fairly smaller object closer to us but it was too bright to really tell but it seemed to be approx. about 100 feet away and up just above the treetops. Please feel free to contact me and let me know if anyone else has reported this same object. I did not know where to look to see if any other strange sighti! ngs were reported that night in this area and this is the first time I have ever gone to a site dealing with this subject. Our neighborhood is very quiet with very few street lights so I doubt it was seen over by us but hopefully it was seen by someone else in Crestview. It's kind of difficult seeing something that cannot be defined or explained. Needless to say, we did not go walking last night or tonight. Maybe tomorrow though. Thank you!

((NUFORC Note: We, at first, thought the sighting might have been caused by an overflight of the International Space Station, but the ISS was not visible over Florida on this date. Please see other report for same time and date from Louisiana. PD))