Fireball on February 11

[IanR]

This link
http://tinyurl.com/ywghl4
takes you to a report in a Coventry paper from a couple who reported a UFO "half the size of their Vauxhall Corsa" on the evening of February 11. They said "we thought it was going to hit the car. It looked like it must have come down in the fields nearby."

The report is from sensible people and largely accurate.

What they saw was in fact a fireball of magnitude –10, similar in brightness to the one reported over southern England at around 3am on the first night of the Rendlesham sighting. And this is the catch – it did not land "in the fields nearby". It was actually over the Netherlands and Belgium. The duration was around 5 seconds.

Here's the photograph:
http://tinyurl.com/yph2ex
(it's the bright descending streak at the 5 o'clock position).

So I think you can understand why Bud Steffens, who reported seeing something come down in Rendlesham Forest at 3am on 1980 December 26, could easily have been mistaken if he did indeed see the fireball that coincidentally occurred at that time.

Ian

[IanR]

Ian,
The Blue orbs that JB reported on night #3 - could these have been ball lightning? Do you have any knowledge of this phenomena ?

No, I don't think ball lightning had anything to do with this case.

Ian