2013-11-06 - Vienna, VA - Fireball

Fireball seen in Northern Virginia

I witnessed a large Fireball with a very distinct tail flying above the cloud cover tonight and tracked it as it went from the East to West towards the setting sun which was already almost down as it was twilight. The moon was barely visible and was to the left of the object, both visible through the low level cloud cover. This object did not follow a typical flight pattern for this area and was much too high in the atmosphere to be a conventional aircraft. I looked like a typical movie style meteor entering the atmosphere but moved very slowly and didn’t dart through the sky as I have seen other meteors do in the past. I tracked it as it moved across the sky for about 10-15 minutes and would wait as disappeared behind clouds and reappeared through openings and I was able to judge where it would re-emerge due to its very linear trajectory. This was a distinct, large fireball with a dark mass towards the front and a bright yellow/orange tail trailing behind! It that did not leave any contrails. I would be very shocked if no one else in Northern Virginia saw this object. It could have just been a large meteor but I thought I would write to you and report it anyway.

Thanks you for your time.