2008-11-20 - Fort Myers, FL

Possible meteor, however light rose then accelerated rapidly across sky flaming then went out.

I get off work at 10:00 pm. As I was driving home this past Thursday evening (November 20, 2008) after work, and at around 10:15 pm I spotted an object that I cannot identify, so I am filing this report. I believe it was probably a meteorite or meteor, but as you will see below it does not fully fit into this category.

I work in Ft. Myers, Florida, and live in Cape Coral, about a 10 mile drive from work to home. I take a back route most of the way,, which is dark, with very few street lights. All of a sudden I noticed a bright light going up from my right to high overhead, in front of me. My first thought was that someone was setting off fireworks, and this is indeed what it looked like at first. When fireworks are first ignited and shot off, they can ascend with a bright light and with a little wobbly motion. Then they burst when they reach a certain peak. Well this light started out like that, a bright light ascending, with the little wobbly motion like fireworks. However, when it reached a peak, instead of bursting into a fireworks display, it shot straight across the sky at very high speed flaming or flaring up as it went, as a meteorite would burning up in the atmosphere. Then it went out and disappeared.

So it appeared to be going up at first, then across the sky accelerating to a very high speed. I am not a pilot or very familiar with height or speed, but even when it appeared to level out and shoot across the sky, it really didn’t seem to be very high up in the atmosphere at all. This is one of the inconsistencies with the meteor theory. The other inconsistency, of course, is that it appeared to be going up at first, maybe from the ground.

In short, I don’t know what this was, but I was looking in the paper and listening to the radio for reports or a meteor or an unidentified flying object in my area for that night. I haven’t heard anything, but I am sure of what I saw. The sky was clear, and anyway it was low enough to be under any clouds that did exist. If anyone else saw anything in this area on that night, I would like to hear about it. Also, and this may be way off base, the next night there were several large helicopters flying around the area at the same time, and in the same general area.