2017-12-28 - Eagle, CO - Fireball

I live in Eagle, CO. 12 miles East of Eagle-Vail airport. Eagle, CO. is 6600 ft above sea level. My living room faces N.E. and is on the 10th fairway of the Eagle Ranch golf-course. I was sitting at a couch having a cup of tea about 10:40 pm. All the lights in the room were out as it was a fairly clear night, yet with only a few stars in view. The couch where I was sitting faces N.E. (I have three fairly large windows) where the night sky is easily viewed. In that the airport is 12 miles West--there are times when airplanes can be seen preparing for landing. I do not know the 'exact' above ground landing preparation distance (ground to air height) as a plane would fly over the golf course coming in for a landing, but I can guesstimate it to be only a few hundred feet or so. In other words when planes come in from the East or the N.E. preparing for landing they can be easily noticed. I mention this because what I am about to describe 'came in' from the N.W. at approximately the same height / distance that an airplane readying for landing would be above the ground. As I was looking out the windows I had a clear view of a wide-sky and the top of the mountain peaks. The orange fire-ball appeared to arrive as if it were entering the atmosphere. It was quick-abrupt; in the sense that what is depicted in a Star Wars film (just viewed the latest: The Last Jedi)-where crafts would go to hyper speed and then abruptly hyper-drive and then appear at their tended location. The orange-fire-ball came into my view from the N.W. exactly like that. When it appeared before my eyes however, it didn't stop abruptly and stay, but stopped for a nano-second and then very slowly continued to travel a very short distance. During this time the fire/flame surrounding the object evaporated and the orange ball proceeded on a S.E. direction then made a very slight turn more eastward--the orange object then lost its complete 'orange color' as it glided towar! d the S.E. where a very small red light was noticed at the tai! l end an d just enough of a very faint outline of an indistinguishable total form would be difficult to describe. Yet, I could see a non-round/ball object in that it was definitely no longer a 'ball'. That's the only way I can describe it. However, it did appear to have more of a 'widened-non-ball' type of shape as it awesomely 'glided' toward the southeast and vanished--taking no longer than about 60 seconds or so as the small red light that seemed, when first noticed, to be at the tail of the object couldn't be seen anymore. It was awesome as it glided into the distance with a steady faster than an airplane's speed would be noticed when coming in from the E. or N.E. to land at the Eagle airport. The reason I saw some distinguishable area of the form was that as I was viewing it from behind there was a very thin yellow-white light that appeared to be a outline of the underbelly of a type of 'wing'? that gave me a reference point to watch it smoothly glide away! This is all I can rea! lly describe. The 'glide' was a kind of smooooooth straight and then light bounce type of motion that then just kept its path. It was very real. The reason I waited until this day (Jan. 7 2018) to post the siting is that I have the 'flu' for just over a week. Therefore, having enough time to recollect what I viewed.