Appearance / Description of Object(s)

Moving east to west(right to left) across my wind shield. A flaming ball with blue center surrounded by yellow trailing into orange and red. like a candle flame going horizontally and leaving a red trail. Came from beyond my vision behind trees and passed beyond trees on opposite side and out of my field of vision.

Size of Object(s)

Dime sized at arms length. Hard to judge because of speed and duration but the size remained the same across the windshield.

Distance to Object(s) & Altitude

150 to 200 feet in altitude,1/8 mile ahead of me approx.

Description of Area / Surroundings

Semi-rural,industrialized area. Many power lines and chemical factories in the area(DuPont etc.) Not aware of power plants.

Full Description & Details

Driving northbound in tractor trailer on 295 in southern NJ. Saw a flame pass from east to west directly across my field of vision in windshield. I thought at the time it might be a plane on fire or a satellite re-entry. It looked like someone had tossed a burning match head across the front of my truck. Sighting was approximately 2-3 seconds in duration and could not have been something thrown because I was driving around 60-65 MPH. It was not a jet engine flame because it flickered and trailed like a torch flame without any semblance of forced gasses behind it. It had a blue center like a gas flame with a yellow and red and orange corona and tail. The tail was mostly orange and red growing redder the farther away from the head of the flame.

I am writing this because I see there was a similar sighting in Oregon 1987. I have seen several strange moving lights in my travels around the country over the past 30 years. Most can be explained as reflections of parking lot sodium vapor lights or headlights over a hill, but this was on an interstate that is heavily traveled with wooded areas on both sides. Nothing was reported of crashes or meteors on the radio or in the news papers. I checked thoroughly. The sky was clear and relatively cloudless. It was late and quite dark. Any lighting is from the town lights beyond the wooded areas(1/4 mile away). It was a curios enough sight to stick with me all these years. I wonder if anyone else in Southern New Jersey saw a fireball aroud the same time?

Can sighting be explained as any conventional man-made or natural object?

The only possible explanation is a piece of space junk burning up on reentry or a plane on fire but it did not look anything like the shuttle pieces I saw on TV and there was no visible fusilage of a plane. The flame did not diminish in size ,or grow,across the windshield so it was probably moving slightly northward, my direction of travel.

Witness Background

Retired truck driver and trucking company manager. Experienced in the tricks that lights and fog can play. Have driven in most of the 50 states and in every possible type of weather and storm. I have a lot of experience doing accident investigation as a manager. I have traveled I-295 hundreds of times.

Views on UFOs, before and after sighting

I have read about UFO's and believe that odds are we're not alone in this vast universe. I don't claim this as a sighting of an alien craft. Just an unidentified sighting of something strange and curious to me.

Other Comments

I'd be interested to know of any other fireball sightins like mine.

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