2007-01-01 - Lake Havasu City, AZ - Sphere

Ground lights up and brings to our attention a huge glowing orange sphere over city.

At approx. 21:45 I was greeting my wife outside as she pulled up in the driveway to our house. She turned of the car and shut off the headlights. 10 seconds passed, I was staring at the car when I saw the entire ground light up as if a bolt of lightning had struck within a 500 yard radius. My first thought was that someone was playing with a camera flash nearby because there were no clouds the sky was clear. I looked up and over towards Cassiopeia and spotted a huge glowing orange object. My wife ran over to where I was standing and we watched it flare up and settle into a consistent magnitude. Comparing it to a couple of stars, the object did not appear to move for the first 4 minutes or so. I ran and grabbed my binoculars and upon closer review, the object seemed to be spherical and above a 30,000 foot ceiling. I am assuming this because I could see a slight hint of atmosphere distorting the light. The event lasted approx. 6 minutes. At the end, the light flickered and faded rapidly. It did not look as though it was moving away, but rather that it lost its illumination much like T.V. set turning off in slow motion. From edge out, the light faded inward until only a small dot could be seen. The tiny dot then just disappeared.