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Remarks |
The fireball was a disc-shaped pale, blue-green globe with no trailing tail. It shot down, angled from right to left, in speeding meteor-like fashion. We first saw it as it came into view from the right top of the car’s windshield. We saw no fragments separating from it as we have seen in bright meteors in the past—not a bolide. It fell directly in front of our northward line of travel, crossing the line of the road from our right-to-left over the vertical plane projecting straight up from the road. It fell in a straight line without any indication of arc, clearly at high speed, meteor-like, for several seconds. Before contacting the ground, which we did not witness, the fireball extinguished suddenly—instantly, but not explosively.
Re-edit: I see on the Pending Report, 174218, the state is *wrongly* listed as Minnesota. I was in Steele County, North Dakota. I double-checked your Google Map and I see Cooperstown, ND and Luverne, ND in the correct positions. My location was around 5 miles north of Luverne, ND. On Google EARTH on my computer, I stretch a line 30 miles 340 degrees and run close to McVille, North Dakota, which has a significant population (~500 or so). It being 9:45PM local time on SATURDAY night, I'd bet that one or more locals noticed it. Also, a wedding we had been attending at a large barn had a crowd of more than 200 folks, many standing outside when we left. They were sure to be standing, looking at the windmills and the crescent moon. Dollars to doughnuts, more than a few of them witnessed this too. That barn was 3 miles north of Luverne. |
