2010-05-26 - Claremont, CA - Fireball

Around May 25th at 10:00, a huge, very slow moving fireball-like object could be seen from Claremont for 30 seconds.

I often work late and that night, in late May of 2010, I got home between 22:00 & 23:00. As usual, after getting out of the car, I stood there a while and look at the stars. I was looking N/E and caught a flicker to the East. I looked and saw, what I can only describe as, a fireball. It was moving so slow that I actually watched it for about 30 seconds. 30 seconds! It was moving easterly on a steady path and had a faint, but visible tail. Whatever its distance was from my eyes, I can assuredly say that it looked the size of the full moon. I could actually see movement in the color probably due to excessive heat. It was kind of like looking straight into a jet’s afterburners.

It was either a HUGE object or it was very, very close. From my viewpoint, it looked like it was at a level where I would normally see jets coming in for a landing, but I’m sure that was just an optical illusion.

I saw nothing coming off the object like pieces or sparks. It was round, clean and almost photoshopped-looking except for the faint pinkish spray of the tail.

If this was a meteor, it was far too close for my comfort and there was nothing at all mentioned on the news.

This is the second time I’ve seen something like this. The first time, in the late 70’s, was not nearly as spectacular, but just a thrilling. As we were driving back from Newport Beach at 3:00am, that object went right over our heads, like a plane going down, then shot up at a very sever angle and out of sight, all in about 10 seconds. No sound at all. Neither of us talked about it. The people in the car driving next to us also saw it. I looked over at them and they just shrugged.

If I were to have taken a picture of either object it would have looked exactly like the gas bubble (without the fiery outer layer and red tail) on the ‘In the News’ section of the C2C website, under "Black Hole blows huge gas bubble."

I’ve never seen ball lightening in California. In any case, I doubt it would be as big as these objects.

I am a Staff Assistant for an Engineering of a Municipal utility. I worked in the aerospace industry for 10 years, loving my company and every minute of work. I have been intrested in everything to do with space, planets, astronomy,and etchnology since I was 1st grade - all due to a large panaramic picture my teached had posted on the Science Wall that dipicted the birth and death of planet Earth. I didn't quite accept that particular concept of Earth, but it was colorful.

I keep binoculars in my car just so I can look at stars. (Unfortunately I wasn't about to take my eyes of the May object to grab the binoculars.I now keep them under the front seat.) I often get up at two or three in the morning just to go outside and look at the sky. It's very calming, but somewhat hard on my neck. I've seen a lot of extremely interesting things up there that, and that just keeps me hooked.

If you keep looking down, you might find money, if you keep looking up, your discoveries can be priceless.


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