2015-11-23 - Orange, CA - Circle

Four fireballs with long tails of fire sighted in the eastern sky from Orange County, CA.

I noticed the first fireball while driving east on Chapman ave in the city of Orange at around 06:15. I watched it come in and out of sight for over thirty minutes as I rode to work with my friend in her car all the way to Santa Margerita. The fireball was heading north/northeast and had a long tail of fire. It was about 30 degrees high at first and gradually worked its way down to about 15 degrees high after about 35 to 40 minutes when it suddenly burned out fell straight towards the ground. The fireball turned into a large ball of smoke before it fell, and the straight tail of fire was replaced by a serpentine smoke trail.

We picked up another worker in Santa Margerita and headed towards El Toro shortly after 07:00. I saw another fireball identical to the first and at about the same trajectory that I had last seen the first one disappear. I thought it was the same fireball initially, and I puzzled over how it could burn out, turn to smoke, and fall from the sky only to reappear ten minutes later. I watched this second fireball flying in the sky for about five minutes before I lost sight of it behind the hills. I sighted Two more fireballs within a minute of losing sight of the second. Judging by the size of the fireballs and the length of the tails, these last two fireballs were much further away than the first two and lower in the sky, but they were all heading in the same direction.

I could see what looked like a bright white light with a concave shape in front of and separate from the fire tail following directly behind it a few times and only when it appeared to be heading towards me. It looked like a shield or something that was suspended directly in front of and well forward of a craft to protect it from burning up as it entered the atmosphere from outer space. It was most often heading away from me, though, and it looked like a ball of fire with a burning tail. I thought they were meteors at first, but I found out that meteors are hard to see in the daylight and usually burn out within 30 seconds when I looked to see if any one reported seeing any meteors at that time. I don't know what I saw, so I guess they are UFOs.