2010-08-18 - Topeka, KS - Fireball

Fireball that simply vanished

I was taking out some trash at approximately 9:40 PM CST on Wed Aug. 18th. I scanned the skies. I saw in the southern sky, I would say about 3 miles away at a 30-40 degree angle from horizon an orange ball moving slowly across the sky. I watched it for about 20 sec and I couldn’t make out any blinking lights that indicated it was a plane, so I watched it about 10 more seconds. At that point I made a decision to go inside and grab my astronomy binoculars to have a better look.

I was able to find the orange ball in the binoculars. I wanted to make sure I had focused them correctly, so I was adjusting one of the eye pads, keeping the binocs on the object. The object was glowing orange, but had some red and white in it as well. As I was adjusting and watching this move across the horizon it faded out and then got brighter, and then it just vanished. Was not seen in the sky anywhere. It was simply gone.

What made me pay attention to it in the very beginning was that it was very similar to some red/orange balls I witnessed on July 4th at Lake of the Ozarks in Missouri.

To me it didn’t act like a plane or helicopter. It was an orange glowing ball slowly making its way across the horizon and it simply blinked and then disappeared.