2010-07-10 - North Attleboro, MA - Fireball

5 or 6 objects appeared low in the sky as fireballs/dome shaped objects

I had a sighting last night (Saturday, July 10, 2010) in North Attleboro, MA at approx. 10:10 PM E.S.T..

This was also witnessed by my wife and our two sons, and also my friend and his wife (and perhaps his two kids).

We first saw the objects while driving home in our cars from a fireworks event in town. We were in two separate cars but close to each other. We were about 1.5 miles away from where the fireworks were when we saw about 5-6 objects low in the sky. We first saw the objects travelling down Landry Avenue, toward Kelly Boulevard (in North Attleboro), in the vicinity of the Joseph Martin Elementary school. They appeared to be travelling north to south (or slightly northwest to southeast).

My wife first saw them, as I was driving the car. I looked over and my initial thought was that whatever they were, it was definitely strange (particularly the brightness and the slow movement of them). I thought it was a constellation for a split second, but then quickly realized they were too low and too bright to be a constellation. Again, they were very low in the sky and much brighter than any night star or planet that I’ve ever seen.

(I should mention that we had a weather cold front move through earlier in the late afternoon that day with heavy rain, so there was still a heavy overcast, although the town fireworks went off as planned. The cloud ceiling was high enough that the fireworks were visible; no issues there. There was no rain at the time of this sighting).

We proceeded to drive to my house, which was just around the corner. My friend and his wife were heading to their house, which was some 30 minutes drive away (Northborough, MA). As I got out of my car, 3 of the objects were almost directly overhead. My guess is that they were several hundred feet up in the sky, to maybe a thousand feet. They were all uniformly reddish/orangish and appeared to "shimmer" slightly. They had the shape of a small dome, and they were fairly large (you didn’t have to strain to see them). They were definitely larger than anything in the sky and symmetrical as best I could tell. My wife and my two boys witnessed the same thing. I called my friend on his cell phone and asked if he saw them, and he said he had, and thought they looked really strange. He was puzzled too. 2 of the 3 objects were very close to each other at one point, with the 3rd one straggling behind. At one point, the 3rd one seemed to increase its velocity slightly, moving sideways, toward where the other two were. What I thought was really unique is that they made absolutely no sound. They kind of hovered, then moved slightly. I watched them for only about a minute, and then they disappeared into the overcast above.

I called the local police and they said they didn’t receive any calls; same for the local newspaper, nothing.

North Attleboro is a town of about 30,000 or so, so we’re not a rural area; others should also have seen this (particularly with fireworks having just ended and a lot of cars on the road). Landry Avenue is a main route that took people away from the fireworks, which many people viewed at the High School, also on Landry Avenue.

I also sent an email to several friends that are in my section of town to ask them if they saw anything; I haven’t received responses back yet, as of this morning.