2010-08-19 - Asheville, NC - Unknown

Large white light with a red hue low in the western sky. Remained for 20 min or more then vanished.

I am a 38 year old male Mental Health Professional. I have never claimed to have seen a UFO, nor am I sure what exactly I saw last night. I've come to this website to see if any other's witnessed what I saw or if there is some kind of reasonalble explanation. While sitting in front of my home, I noticed a very bright white light whith a red hue low in the western sky. At first I thought it was a low flying plane, as there is a small airport nearby. But then I noticed it wasn't really moving. It was hard to determine if it was in our atmosphere or in space. Then I began to think perhaps it was a very bright star or planet, but it just seemed too big for that and the red hue didn't make sense. I couldn't really determine what it might be. I called to my wife and a visting friend who witnessed it as well. Star, plant, plane; they came to the same conclusion as me. I called a neighbor and he and his family witnessed it as well. They had a pair of binoculars and ! indicated that it was round with a red hue. They could not determine if it was in our atmosphere or not. We watched it for about 15-20 minutes, and then it made an apparent wobble to the left and the white light disappeared. You could then see a faint red twinkling hue in it's place. At one point, about 3-4 min. following the bright light's disappearance, there was another flash or shimmer resembling the largewhite light that lasted about 2 seconds. I watched the red twinkling hue for another 5-10 minutes before clouds moved in and obscured my view completely. I live in North Asheville, and called a friend in South Asheville to see if he had noticed the light. He, in fact, had noticed it while driving home, and had thought it to be an oddly large, bright planet. He suggested that perhaps it was a large meteor. I called the local paper shortly after to see if anyone else had reported it, but no one had at that time.