2005-09-25 - Prescott Valley, AZ - Fireball

Extremely bright glowing orange ball of light with some sort of dim object obove it, possibly a reflection on a larger surface

Approximately 7:15pm, Sunday September 25th. The phone rang-- it was my wife, calling from work. As I often do while on the phone, I stepped outside as we talked. There was still a good amount of light from the sun, which had set behind Glassford Hill (my back yard faces west, directly toward the hill). I immediately saw the orange ball and knew what it was. I have seen perhaps 10 of these in the 3.5 years I’ve lived at this house. With most of my sightings, the objects have been moving in a roughly south to north path, but a few –including one dramatic sighting- have moved in a north-south direction. This time it was moving south to north.

This time the object was quite close, and very distinct, directly in front of me and clear. It was, again, a very bright orange glowing ball. There appeared to be something above it that the glow was reflecting on. As with another close sighting, when my wife and I both had a good amount of time to view one of these objects, I had the impression that the glow was on the underside of a larger object. This time, perhaps because there was more ambient light in the sky, this thing above the glow was more apparent. I almost got the impression that it might be a balloon with some sort of flare burning under it. (Is there any known weather balloon or anything that fits that description?) It appeared to be quite close (although it is admittedly difficult to judge distances on lights in the dark sky) it was completely silent.

I was quite excited and told my wife what was happening. When she put me on hold (oddly, to tell a customer at her work that I was watching a UFO), I started yelling out loudly that there was a UFO in the sky, hoping that one of the neighbors would look up. I’m sure I sounded like a nut, but I was hoping that some other people would see what I was seeing (I don’t know if anyone heard or looked up and saw it).

It was moving fairly quickly, and since the air was very still, it seems unlikely that this was a balloon or anything else floating in the wind. I ran inside and grabbed my camera. The object was still quite close but I was having a hard time getting the camera to focus on it in the dim light. I watched it for a little while longer and decided to try to take a picture again. This time it focused and I got the attached snapshot (see email). It was quite far away by now and appeared as just a small dot in the sky. In the picture the object looks blurred because, presumably, the shudder speed was long. The combination of the movement of the object and my hand shaking is what caused the object the be shaped that way (I am assuming this because it was round to my eye).

Also attached to the email is a PhotoShop sketch of what I saw, as the photo is so poor and doesn’t really illustrate my sighting.

I have another report from 12-28-2004 that I can send you, along with a similar photo, if you would like. Let me know. I hope you can look into this sighting tonight and let me know if there is any explanation for what I saw (and have seen many times here in Prescott Valley).


((NUFORC Note: Witness elects to remain totally anonymous; provides no contact information. PD))