2011-11-06 - Rohnert Park, CA - Fireball

One small orange orb or ball of fire that changed direction and drifted across the horizon

I began driving Eastbound on Allan Avenue after leaving my fiance's home when I noticed a bright orange orb descending vertically and sort of flickering like a flame between the moon and what I believe was Jupiter in the Eastern sky. There was some sparse cloud cover and I pulled over after I realized that the object did not display any typical required aircraft lighting. The area is in the path of several major and minor airports in the Norther Bay Area so there is a lot of air traffic and the object was moving too slowly to be a falling.

I began to shoot digital photographs. A neighbor and two others were getting into a car in the adjacent driveway and they asked me what the object was. I told the neighbor that I did not know and that is why I was trying to take photos, to which he replied "Beam me up, Scotty" indicating that he did not recognize what the object could be either. It then changed direction and brightness and began to drift Southward over the University area, under the cloud cover, an estimated 200' to 500' above the ground and about a mile to my East.

I continued to take digital photos and tried to adjust settings on the camera to get a better image until it drifted too far away for the optics to capture an image. At least five minutes from the initial sighting to the object drifting over the Southern horizon.