2012-02-15 - Louisville, KY - Fireball

Large pale yellow ball of light seen over Louisville Kentucky

On or about February 2012, in Louisville, Kentucky, I was driving home from work. It was around 5:00pm and I was traveling in a northerly direction.

I was just about to take my exit from one expressway to another when I noticed to my left an odd little cloud that was lit up from behind and was displaying rainbow colors. I kept looking at it trying to figure out what it was.

In addition, right in front of me was a huge ball of beautiful pale yellow light, not moving at all, just hanging there in the sky. At the time I thought was the sun. It was massive and it didn’t hurt the eyes to look directly at it. It was like looking at the sun through a gauzy haze.

The oddly colorful and brightly lit cloud to my left captured my attention. As I continued to drive, I was looking from the ball of light in front of me, to the anomaly on my left. I was observing other drivers to see if anyone else noticed anything out of the ordinary and no one seemed to. Unfortunately, I was unable to pull over to examine it more closely due to heavy traffic and the lack of a safe place to do so.

It was the next day while traveling home at the same time of day and the same route that I realized that the anomaly to my left I had witnessed the day before was actually the sun shining through a cloud; and that the large ball of light was the true anomaly.

I still marvel to this day about what it could have been; and I regret not pulling off the highway to get a better look.