2012-10-20 - Eau Claire, WI - Fireball

Three groups , each between 5 and 10 objects moved across the sky and disappeared low in sky-Another group appearing shortly after.

I was outside because my neighbors were being loud and seeing what they were up to. Above their house (looking south) a group of 5-8 small reddish orange lights appeared one after another, seemed to form a group and moved across the sky looking to the south they were headed east. They were too bright to judge distance accurately but i would estimate they were at least 10-20 miles from me.

The group faded in brightness equally as they headed to the eastern lower sky and eventually disappeared before they reached the horizon - The sky is very clear and they were not obscured by clouds --this was very odd and nothing i have seen before happen.

I had called my wife outside and she saw the first group just disappearing and then suddenly another group of 10-12 appeared in the exact same location above my neighbors house at the end of the block and moved in the same vertical/closer, then eastern direction ..very low near the horizon. They were about 3-4" if i measured with a ruler above the roof of my neighbors house when they appeared and stayed at the same altitude the entire flight - The house is nearly 1 block away from me.

After this second group disappeared a third group of around 4-5 more orange lights appeared and followed the exact same pattern.

I was able to capture pictures of these with my Cannon T2i 18mp camera.. had the lens at its full 275mm .. I did not have a tripod and took 2.5 second exposures steadying the camera against the house. The objects blur in a west to east direction in the photos and are bright reddish orange, much brighter in the center than the edges.

We both agreed this was, by far, the most strange thing we have seen in the sky at night and are still not sure what to make of what we saw tonight.

Contact me via e-mail and i will send the pictures i took with my cannon digital camera.