2005-04-29 - Fort Bragg, NC - Circle

1 bright object enters atmosphere, turns into 2 objects, then cross the sky very slowly

Tonight me and a friend went outside to smoke cigars. As soon as we got outside I went to light my cigar and looked up at the stars, as it is a nice clear night sky. At first glance I saw only starry sky, with Venus shining brightly as it always does. Moments later I looked back up and noticed one star acting funny. It seemed to be moving very slowly, and had a glow about it. The glow was very slight, and only appeared behind it in a trianglular shape, as it appears behind meteors and such. I told my friend to look at this point. Seconds later there appeared to be an explosion of some sort, with a funnel shaped cloud resulting. The object still resembled a star at this point, just a small white circle, but moving. A second after this explosion and resulting cloud, the object slowly split into 2 objects. The objects no longer had any smoke trail or halos around it, but kept moving across the sky, very slowly. As the 2 objects moved, they traveled in the same trajectory, while the trailing object moved steadily slower than the first. After what seemed 2 to 3 minutes, the second object became noticeably more distant than the first, and also less bright. As the 2 objects made their way to the other side of the sky, the first object lost its brightness, becoming a fuzzy blur, while the second object faded then reappeared to its previous brightness. A minute later, as they passed further across the horizon, they both faded from view. It should be noted that after the explosion occured they traveled only straight across the sky, rather than downwards toward earth.

((NUFORC Note: We assume that the witness describes above the launch of a Titan IV missile out of Cape Canaveral, which occurred at 20:55 hrs. (Eastern) on this date. The missile apparently was launched to the northeast, so it was visible along the eastern shoreline of the U. S.. PD))