I've seen lots of meteorites and they are mostly very quick and burn up in a flash. I also seen something looking out my window when I was younger I am sure was just space junk burn up. It was large in the sky and moved slowly across the horizon and you could follow it for a good while untill it went out of view. I am sure it was space junk.

[edit on 10/2/2004 by esther]

Originally posted by markjaxson
That picture looks like it was taken from a mobile phone camera.

This probably explains more what it was...

Asteroid 2004 PT42 is flying past Earth this week. It's big, about 1 mile wide, and just bright enough to photograph through backyard telescopes. Here's a short video captured on August 17th by Mike Holloway of Van Buren, Arkansas

If it is just bright enough to be photographed through a telescope, in all fairness there is not a chance in the world that it is going to be photographed that spectacularly with the best unaided camera in the world, let alone a picture phone!

The reason that the tail doesn't show up in the pictures is because of the brightness of the object. It's the same effect you get with too much backlighting.

I remember sitting on a hill with my best friend, about 6 or 7 years ago, when we both watched a bright ball cruising across the sky. It wasn't a plane (I watch planes take off all the time because the Air National Guard and the Airport share the same land and runways). The ball was also moving entirely too fast to be a satellite... I've watched them, too. The ball was, as best as I can describe, about 1/3 the size of the moon at it's highest point, about the same color as the moon when it's sitting right on the horizon and full (that nice orange color), and did not have any tail, so it appeared to not be something burning up in the atmosphere.

We watched this ball cruise across the sky for about 5 minutes. Neither of us said anything at first until I asked "M" if he was watching that. He said he thought he was just seeing things (we were stoned I believe). Crazy stuff.

Maybe this one was a UFO that had been shot by a laser weapon and was crashing? lol... it's ATS, I couldn't resist!