2007-08-03 - Bethlehem, CT - Fireball

Ball of White Fire Shoots Across the Sky in Bethlehem

This happened during a thunderstorm. I'm not sure if it was ball lightning or something else.

At approximately 11:30pm and after the rain and lightning had passed, I stepped outside on the back porch for a cigarette. I did not see any lightning at the time or hear any thunder that I recall (but I was not listening for it). I was facing the north to the back yard and decided to turn around. Just as I turned to the south, I saw what looked like a comet but larger shoot across the sky. I can only describe it as a very large comet, white light, with a tail. It flew under the clouds in the south which would be in the Watertown direction. Since it was cloudy, the object was low, and quite large (from a distance), I can only estimate that it was not a comet or shooting star. Stunned (for I've never seen anything like it before), I waited to see if anything else would transpire. Some lightning did issue from the clouds to the south, along with some thunder shortly after, the kind that webs out of the sky toward the ground, but what I had seen a moment before had shot horizontally from west to east, and was a lone object not attached to any such electrical webbing.

I brushed this even off as being a first time sighting of 'ball lightning'. This morning I looked it up on the web, and although it is sometimes described as having a tail, I am only coming upon stories of 'ball lightning' "hovering" and moving slowly, which is a little confusing to me. What I saw did not hover or move slowly, nor did it resemble the ball lightning I came upon in a short film on YouTube. This moved quickly and brightly, like a ball of white fire. I do suppose it could be ball lightning, but am not sure. If anyone else in the area had seen it, reported it, or experienced the sort in the past, I would very much like to know.

Thank you very much.