2007-12-20 - Beirut, Tabariss (Lebanon) - Fireball

As usual every day I was on my way back home from work in a shared taxi service from Hamra to Ashrafieh Beirut, Lebanon (Middle East). It was between December 07 and January 08 around 6pm. After “Murr Tower” we were crossing the Ring highway that gets us to Ashrafieh from Hamra. I was sitting in the front next to the driver and another passenger a young woman (around 26 yrs old) was sitting behind me at the back-seat. As we were crossing that highway I saw a motionless light-ball in front of us about 200-250 high and about 200 meters ahead. Let me point something here: Since a similar sighting of a couple of years earlier, I keep gazing in the sky when I’m in a car with someone. It was about the same timing but for a longer time, me and my brother were stuck in heavy traffic between Carantina and Dora when we noticed two still orangey Light-balls ahead of us in traffic about 250-300 meters above the horizon but looked much farther, about a km or a little less. We pointed and some people in close-by cars noticed them too. We kept guessing if it could possibly be artificial lighting over a high building or a road light but it sure wasn’t. The pair were too high above the horizon and after a while one moved towards the other and they started moving up and down and left and right in short sharp swift manner which exclude the possibility of a normal helicopter, they were too fast and froze too quickly when they stopped. Let me get back now this late sighting of last year, here it was motionless and grabbed my attention and excitement clearly so I showed it to the driver and then the girl at the back, they were both amazed by the strange nature of a frozen motionless glittering fire ball in the sky, it looked small but appeared like a ball not a point and felt too close. By the time the taxi driver had the chance to pull over on the right side of the highway we became exactly underneath it. The three of us got our heads out of the windows and looked at it from beneath. I remember the girl sayi! ng “we’r e exactly under it now, please move forward before something falls down on us!”. My best guess is that it was 200-300 meters above us now, looked 2x larger than before, fiery orange to yellow light sphere. The second the driver stepped on the gas and moved forward it gradually but rapidly darted straight towards the opposite way we were heading and that is towards Ras-Beirut (Hamra) gaining ultra speed. I kept my head out and my eyes pointed at the thing, as it first accelerated when the car was about to move, it started glittering and then as it gained speed it started blinking more, as it sped very fast reaching probably the shoreline over “Manara” it blinked faintly and disappeared. The time it took from acceleration to disappearance is no more than 4 seconds. The three of us were startled with what we saw and guessed that it might be some advanced Israeli unmanned reconnaissance droid which I doubt it because why does it shine so bright if it’s supposed to be sneaking discretely for sound or image? Best, M.J


((NUFORC Note: Witness indicates that date of incident is approximate. PD))