Pauline Petsel, of Birds Bridge Road, photographed this fiery object in the night sky on Monday from her home on Birds Bridge Road. She and her husband, Carl, say they don't know what the object was.
Originally published: 2009-07-09 11:27:34
Last modified: 2009-07-09 11:27:34

Three Observers

Aren't Sure What

They Saw Monday

BY BILL JONES

STAFF WRITER

A Birds Bridge Road couple saw, and photographed, a fiery, fast-moving object in the sky over southern Greene County on Monday night.

Carl and Pauline Petsel say they don't know what the object was that they and a friend, who was visiting their home, saw about 10:30 p.m. Monday.

Carl Petsel, who is a retired St. Petersburg, Fla., police officer, said he first noticed the object in the night sky as he looked south toward Camp Creek Bald (sometimes called Viking Mountain) in an attempt to see fireworks.

He noted that the object was moving rapidly in a southerly direction toward the mountains that form the border with North Carolina.

Carl Petsel said he is convinced that the object was moving away from the area where fireworks were being shot into the air by a neighbor and appeared to be moving faster than space satellites he was seen in the past.

After he told his wife and their friend, Patti Ritter, what he had seen, Carl Petsel said, his wife, who is a skilled amateur photographer, rushed outside and took several photos of the fleeting object with a digital camera.

On Tuesday, Greeneville Sun photographer Jim Feltman attempted to enhance the digital images of the object Mrs. Petsel photographed.

After reviewing the enhanced photos, Carl Petsel said he thought the object might have been a meteor that was entering the atmosphere.

But Pauline Petsel said she was unconvinced that the object was a meteor.

"When I first saw it, it looked like it was on fire," she said, noting that the object appeared to her to have dropped vertically toward the earth before making a sudden "right turn" and speeding away toward the Asheville Highway (Tennessee Route 70 South).

Mrs. Petsel also said she believed the object had been moving along horizontally at a level below the top of the mountains that border southern Greene County.

However, Mr. Petsel said he believed the object could have been higher than the mountain tops.

In a written statement, the Petsel's friend, Patti Ritter, said the object initially appeared to be roughly about three-quarters of the size of the full moon.

She descibed the object as being orange in color and noted that it appeared to have "flames on it toward the bottom."

In her statement, Ritter wrote that the wind was blowing in a direction opposite to the object's direction of travel when she saw it.

"It took only a very short time to move and be out of sight," Ritter wrote.

She noted that she was surprised that the object did not appear larger in the digital photos that Mrs. Petsel took.

More residents of southern Greene County have called The Greeneville Sun concerning sightings of strange objects in the night sky earlier this week.
Also on Thursday, an East Tennessee State University astronomy professor said, after reviewing a photo taken on Monday night, that the object was not a meteor.

Peter Hasterlik, a Heaven's Gate Lane resident, said that he and his wife on Monday night saw a bright object, which he described as a white light, moving along the Camp Creek Bald (Viking Mountain) and Meadow Creek Mountain.

The object suddenly "shot straight up" and disappeared as they watched, Hasterlik said.

Also on Monday night, Pauline and Carl Petsel, of Birds Bridge Road, saw, and photographed an object that glowed orange in the same area.

Hasterlik telephoned the Sun on Thursday after an article that outlined what the Petsels saw and one of their photos was published in the newspaper.

Karen Smith, an Asheville Highway resident, said in a voice-mail message left for a Sun reporter on Friday that her family had seen strange objects in the night sky on both July 2 and July 3.
SEEN FOR SIX YEARS

An Ebenezer Road resident who also saw the Thursday article called on Friday morning to say that she had been seeing for the last six years orange and white, balloon-like, objects in the night sky along the mountains that mark Greene County's border with North Carolina.

The caller, who asked that her name not be used, said the bright objects appear sporadically throughout the year, often near the top of Camp Creek Bald. She noted that she has never heard any sound associated with the objects, although her dogs sometimes refuse to leave the house when the objects are active.
"It's not an airplane, or a balloon, or a helicopter," the woman said. "They don't move like that."
POSSIBLY BALLOONS?
A Wayland Drive resident called on Thursday to say she thinks glowing objects in the night sky earlier this week over southern Greene County were some type of balloons.
Angie Hopson, who lives on Wayland Drive off the Asheville Highway said she, her husband and another couple saw on a recent night between 10:30 p.m. and 11 p.m. a total of seven glowing orange objects that moved across the night sky toward Camp Creek.

Pauline Petsel writes, “A couple weeks ago about January 15, 2012, I looked outside to see if there were any more flashing lights in the sky which I'd been photographing off and on for three years.” In fact by word of mouth I found several others watching this stuff and a group called Sky Watchers formed. We keep in contact through Face book.
One woman who lives five miles closer than I to the mountain range has taken pictures similar to mine. We have both been seeing things every night the last three months at 8:45-9:15 PM, I did get a chance once to see what she was getting and hers looked just like mine but a different angle.

About two weeks ago I looked out and saw
a couple flashing lights but was amazed to see what I thought was a faded colored orange blimp looking thing lazily crossing just above the Viking Mountain range. I didn't see any lights, just the image. I have my Nikon D 300 on a vibration controlled tripod and use a shutter release cord. I set the ISO to 3200. The thing moved so slow that I got four pictures in the same view finder. I never saw the 'blimp looking object' do anything at all. However while I was looking elsewhere and still clicking, my camera seemed to pick up weird motion. At church I mentioned what I saw to a retired military pilot who claim that he and his wife had watched the same object themselves, but 'they' saw it moving and jumping all over the place.
The six mile area we see clearly of the Mt. range took the object 4 minutes 44 seconds to move across going 45-48 miles an hour. We saw it between 8:45-9:15 PM. Another couple from church who saw it live 20 miles away from us saw it at 12:45 PM. They watched its slow progression for 28 minutes and then they said it turned and shot upward into the sky!

The pictures that I got are unbelievable enough with the twists and turns. One picture looks like a signature! But it isn't. It’s just more of its reforming. I have four people that also saw it. Editor’s Note: Advertising Blimps can be mistaken for a UFO.