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Remarks |
It looked exactly like a meteor with sparks of white light and a tail. It came down directly from the sky above straight down onto the earth in front of my eyes. It was not coming at an angle, no streak across the sky. It was directly overhead falling straight down. It appeared to be a mile in front of me. I think I was looking in a NE direction from where I was in my car. It appeared to hit down on the east end of my little city, Big Timber.
It appeared to be the size of a school bus, or 40 times the size of the biggest fireworks I ever saw. I will never forget this. I appeared as if it was going to crash on the edge of my town before my eyes. I expected it would blow a hole in the town and kill hundreds.
Please do not misunderstand this: It had all the appearance of a shooting star. But because I know your eyes can deceive you, as it was coming down I considered every possibility. It looked as if the biggest helicopter they make had been very high in the sky and caught fire and was falling fast straight down to earth in front of me. It looked like a very big object was going to hit. But it didn't look like a burning craft, it was all white sparks like a shooting star.
It only lasted 2-3 seconds. Before hitting the earth if shrunk rapidly in size. It was either burnt-up before it hit, or was reduced to a pebble. I was coming off the interstate. The driver behind me stopped and was horrified. He called his wife and said it looked like the world was ending. Except that it disappeared before it hit. We saw that there was no need to be alarmed because it burnt-out, but we were still shaking.
There was a very thin film or haze in parts of the sky. Not enough to call clouds. The moon had a huge halo around it that was clear. As the meteor passed through the haze it got harder to see and it began shrinking fast at this time. We could not be sure if it was completely burnt-up before it hit the earth, or if it just became very small because the cloud cover diminished the view of whatever was left of it.
I told the sheriff immediately. No one reported anything. I drove up on a hill to see if there was any fire, but I saw nothing. I looked at the geography in the daylight the next day. If it had landed where it appeared to, it would have missed the town, and landed in open range ranch land where it would not have done damage. I talked more with the sheriff and the airport staff and no one knew of anything.
But a friend told me that if it was a fireball, it could have been 100 miles away and only appeared to be a mile from me.
It was so big I hope to learn that someone else saw it. I am curious as to how far away it actually was.
I considered the color white or a very pale blue, the same color of stars. The other observer saw a trace of light orange. I understand that different people's brains record things differently. But he saw the same thing as to size size and location. |
