Orange And Yellow Fireball U.S. Side Of The Canadian Boarder

Posted: December 28, 2007

Date: August 1972

I had just graduated from high school, and a buddy and I decided to drive across country and sight see. We were skirting the Canadian boarder on the U.S. side, headed east to west. It was August of 1972.

We were in Montana, and approaching foothills on a winding, two lane country road - traveling at about 40 miles an hour. The sky was clear blue, and the time was late afternoon, just about the point when the light starts to change. The road was tree lined on both sides. I was in the passenger seat with my feet up on the dash and my window open. A huge fireball rose up from the tree line on the right, directly in front of the car hood. The fireball was orange and yellow, regular fire color, but was also displayed green flame and sparks in the front and bottom of the object (?). It disappeared behind the tree line on the left - directly in front of our view, in a perfect arc. If you were to crumple up a sheet of notebook paper, dip it in gas and swing it on a string, you'd get the general idea. The thing was about 200 to 500 feet over our heads - about the size of a VW Bug.

It was "popping" and showering sparks - but had very little if any tail. If you ground something on a grinding stone that had pits in it, that's how it sailed through the sky... sort of intermittent pops, showering flame and sparks. Needless to say, we freaked.My friend ditched the car. It was odd because from the sight of it, one might have imagined it roaring like a freight train, but it made no sound what so ever. Nor did anything else... not a cricket - totally and utterly silent. It left us both speechless. It sort of tumbled and lolled, over the road. As for speed, I really can't say. It seemed VERY slow, but when something that shocking happens, time seems to slow anyway. However, I'd venture a guess that the thing took about 5 seconds to pass over us.

From it's direction, we assumed that it would crash somewhere behind the trees, and not very far away. But like I said, there was no noise of the crash we both anticipated. We sat for a while deciding whenther to leave the car and attempt to find it. We decided not to leave the car, because there wasn't much shoulder and nothing around us for miles. Hll, I don't think we had even seen another car for hours, both before and after the sighting. We chalked it up to "weird stuff happens" and I didn't think about it again for over 25 years. We talked about it for the rest of out trip, and agree on the essential details. About 5 or 6 years ago, being new to the net, began to look at pictures of bolides and meteors. I also read of an account of a rare meteor that skipped into and then out of our atmosphere at that time period and was spotted in Montana and Colorado. But nothing I've seen looks anything like what we saw that summer, and that was headed south to north, while out fireball was headed from north to south.

Thank you to the witness for the report.

Brian Vike, Director HBCC UFO Research. email: hbccufo@telus.net Website: http://www.hbccufo.org http://www.brianvike.com, http://www.hbccufo.com, http://www.hbccufo.net HBCC UFO Research International: http://www.hbccufointernational.org/

HBCC UFO Research, Box 1091 Houston, British Columbia, Canada - VOJ 1ZO