First, I'm not claiming this to be a UFO... However, I know the folks here have pretty good eyes and might be able to tell me what it IS, since I know what it ISN'T. I took these pictures around 5-ish on Saturday the 19th. I live in Greenville, NC- sorta near the coast. I had gone outside to get in my car and run to the store and I looked up and saw this orange streak moving away from us. I looked at it for about 10 seconds and called my roommate to show him. The first thing we thought was that it was a meteor or something. I ran to get my camera and wish I had gotten it sooner cuz the "tail" was longer when I originally saw it. This is just a disclaimer, since I know how some people can be: I do NOT own photoshop, and any grainy qualities of these pictures are due to my ancient 2.3 megapixel digital camera, which has served me quite well in the past. The pictures I have on my computer are somewhat clearer than the photobucket transfers, but you get the general idea... Any thoughts? Thanks in advance

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Got to be a heavenly body.

Nice pics.

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asteroid...

Awesome heh, was afraid everyone would flame me and say it was fake... Yeah, it looked a bit different in person, like the back in was actually burning which led us to believe it was an asteroid or something... my roommate thought it might be a plane that had burst into flames and was falling out of the sky, but that didn't seem quite right...

noty a asteriod, they are big, it's a meteor unless it like went backwards. did it ever crash?

It would be all over the news if it was a plane. But I must admit, nice shot .

If it did, we didn't hear anything... course, about 3 hours after this we started drinking so who knows what happened I'll check the local news sites, but I doubt they'll have anything

From what I can see, it probably burned up in the atmosphere before touching the ground.

falling angel??

How fast was it moving?

Could be an airplane/contrail, with the tint to the trail from the sunset.

The sky is falling!

Great pic dude.

It was moving too fast to be an airplane at that height and not be able to be seen as an airplane

It looks *exactly* like a jet contrail. You would have difficulty seeing a plane at the leading tip of the contrail because you would only be seeing the shadowed underside of the craft. Remember that what you were seeing was at that moment flying over ground a significant distance from you, far enough for there to be an appreciable curvature of the earth between you and it. Combine that with the difficulty in judging the distance from one end and the other of the contrail due to its distance from you, plus the actual difference in angle between the plane's motion and you and the plane's motion and the ground directly beneath you, and it looks like the plane is falling when in actuality it is travelling horizontally, or at least tangentially, in relation to the ground.

Regarding how fast it was moving: you had time to look at it, call your friend from inside, watch for a while with the friend, go back inside to get your camera, come back, then take these pictures. A meteor going fast enough to experience compression burn would not have stayed in view long enough for you to have watched even for the first 10 seconds you said you watched when you first noticed it.

If the sky is clear tomorrow evening, I promise I'll take some pictures that look almost exactly like this and post them. Too late to do it today, plus we have low clouds, but we usually see "flocks" of these in the western twilit sky.

Meh... for an optimist, you sure can be a kill joy... Look, maybe the times are off- the camera was right inside, and from the time i first started seeing it to the time it was gone was probably 30 seconds or so- however, in 21 years, i've never seen a plane with a trail that looks like that, and you're the only one (well, 2) on this thread that saw it as such... I'm not saying you're wrong, but maybe its not quite as common as you think

what direction was the sun from the picture?
It may be reflection from below the horizion.

Hello Gavin

Yes you are right...it is a UFO....becoz nobody knows what it is!

...well yes, I guess that is true- its gotta be SOMETHING, but it is, as yet, unidentified... maybe i should have said its not aliens, hehe

Either a meteor or a jet whose contrail is being lit up by the setting sun. I see the latter almost daily out here due to the military bases and the tendency for clear skies. It looks pretty weird and the first time I saw it, I thought for sure I was looking at some major meteor action. After seeing the same thing for a couple years, lol, not so impressive now.

Same here. And my apologies for not getting the pictures. We had perfect skies for viewing them today and there were 4 or 5 visible at once over the western horizon, but alas... I didn't have my camera. I will be sure to take it with me tomorrow for sure. In fact, I'm going to put it in my truck right now so I don't forget.

GavinStrife,
GREAT pics!!! Definitely caught my attention, peaked my interest....frustrating to think we will likely never really know what it was. I mean we can all speculate but how can it ever be said what exactly that was on that exact day.......exactly. LOL but I AM being serious here the photographic image is just that...an image and not the real deal. But good job, way to capture the moment! VERY interesting and thanks for sharing!

OptimisticSkeptic,
I sure do hope you put the camera in your truck!! LOL We are all bursting with suspense, hangin' here, watching and waiting for your reproduction of this intriguing photography!! Alas, apologies accepted but c'mon now, it was the perfect skies and all! LOL And YOU KNOW you got us all here waitin'!

Looks like a comet to me. =P Good find though.