[singlepic=85,220,160,,right]A weird fireball, first thought to be a firework whizzed over a family and their home in Spring Croft, Kimberworth Park, Rotherham (UK) at around 10.15pm on Sunday (2nd July 2006).
The incident happened during a huge thunderstorm, and at first the family thought it was a firework, but the light continued to fly through the air in a north-easterly direction. They watched the light, expecting an explosion, but nothing happened, then suddenly it changed direction and flew quickly to the east, towards Swinton, where it appeared to plummet to the earth.
The family became alarmed and thought it was going to crash, but there was nothing, no explosion not even a muffled bang.
The object was an orange light with an aura to it, and thought to be flying around 1,000ft up, but they couldn’t really tell what size it was.
What was it? Did you see anything strange that night?
It sounds a bit like Ball Lightning, which can take the form of a short-lived, glowing, floating object often the size and shape of a basketball, but it can also be golf ball sized or smaller. It is sometimes associated with thunderstorms, but unlike lightning flashes arcing between two points, which last a small fraction of a second, ball lightning reportedly lasts many seconds.
Related Links:
Man’s plea as family is startled by a ‘UFO’
Ball lightning theories
April 27th, 2007 at 7:34 pm
i live in liverpool and i seen a strange orange ball type object in the sky at 1200am on the 22/04/07. i first thought was a fire work but it seemed to be flying across the sky or re-entering the atmosphere. i thought i would hear reports of a satalite crashing as it has a trail. can anyone explain it to me because it was too big to be a shooting star and was observed for five mins by my friends and i.
June 12th, 2007 at 10:48 am
About 26 years ago three of my friends and I were walking down Flaxman Road in Camberwell, London on a bright weekday afternoon. I looked up and saw a ball of light about the size of a football less than 100 feet in the air above a railway line. At first I thought someone was shining a tourch in the sky, but then I realised it was daytime and you would not be able to see tourchlight in the sky in these conditions. I pointed it out to my friends and as we walked we looked at it, but it was also moving at about the pace we were walking. A little further along we stopped and the ball of light stopped and just hung there for a few seconds and then it started to move again, I thought it was coming towards us, but it seemed to change direction and started moving vertically and then it just accelerated at an amazing speed upwards and away and it made a high pitch noise as it shot off, not a loud noise. I think the light was following us some way back further down the road but we had not noticed it because it was above us. True story.
July 11th, 2007 at 7:18 am
Michelle / Fish, thanks for your comments.
Has anybody else seen anything strange in the sky?
January 25th, 2008 at 6:20 pm
I saw a very similar light last night(Thursday)
This was in Wells, Somerset. I was taking my dog for a wander and saw what I first thought was a plane on fire going over above me. It was heading East towards Bath. There was no sound and it seemed to travel in a straight line at a constant height. On watching it for a while it resembled an orange ball of flame. Very strange indeed. I called my wife on the mobile and told her to go into the back garden and look. She saw the same object moving East but not as closely as I did. She describes it as an orange flickering ball of light. I have seen nothing like it before. I will be taking my camera out with me in future in case I see one again. Hope this is of interest. Regards.
March 12th, 2008 at 5:52 pm
on 2/3/08 at approx 7.40 pm my son and I were standing outside his house in Shepton Mallet, Somerset. when we saw what I can only discribe as an orange yellow glowing ball in the sky. The evening was dark with a very cold wind blowing and slight rain. We could not think of what it was, other than ball lightning. It was about between beach ball/ basket ball size,approx 100 ft up in the sky and about 1 street away. The ball of light was being blown by the wind as it came from the south west slowly rising up as it went to the east. we watched it for a couple of minutes until it faded away in the distance. As we are both used to watching satellites, comets, the ISS etc, we are baffled as to what it was and did anyone else see it.
June 8th, 2008 at 3:03 am
i on the 6th of june about 11pm was on the phone looking out of my window when all of a sudden this orange ball looking thing appeared and to me it looked like a fire ball as it came closer to where i live it started to fade then vanished i then ran for my digital camara incase it happened again and it did this time there was 2 of them side by side but one shot across sky then vanished other one was still in view i recorded it from when i noticed to the finish. oh and yes they both vanished suddenly
sounds like you seen and i seen same thing but different times plus after 1st one there then was 2 well scary to see it coming towards ya