2013-12-25 - Elgin, IL - Cylinder

A cylinder shaped object with a reddish glow and yellow fireball clusters moves slowly across the sky.

I was in my backyard which is on the north side of my property. I observed what at first I believed to be fireworks ascending from the west. I observed a reddish glow with what appeared to be a yellowish fireball in the center. Being Christmas I assumed that one of the neighbors had lit a firework, as they do on holidays.

This light continued to ascend and moved in an easterly path almost directly over my backyard. It maintained an elevation of approx. 150 feet and continued in an almost due east direction. The speed of this object was slow, guessing about 10 to 15 miles per hour. I observed this object as it went further away from me until it appeared to fade into the low cloud cover about 1 to 2 miles east of my location.

The shape of this object seemed to be fluctuating a bit, but mainly appeared to be of a cylinder shape. The description I gave to the local police was that it kind of looked like a red jellyfish with a cluster of 2 or 3 fireballs in the center of it floating across the sky. At one point as this object wavered there appeared to be lines extending from the top of the cylinder down the sides in a uniform manner. Similar to the tentacles of jellyfish. However there was a defined bottom to the lines almost like a veil. It almost appeared that the red aura was from the illumination of the center fireball cluster.

I'm not sure of the size of this object, but I roughly guess that the top to bottom length was about 5 feet and that the diameter was about 3 feet.

Oddly, there was no sound detectable by me.

I have never seen anything like this before.