SIGHTING: MINOT, NORTH DAKOTA (UNITED STATES)

Witness Testimony

"I want to share a sighting with you. Hopefully, other people will contact you about this unusual sighting. Please pardon my terrible grammar.I live on South Hill in Minot. I'm about 13 miles away from Minot Air Force Base. From my house I can see and hear bigger and louder planes flying near the base if the weather conditions are right. Last night, July 4th, the weather was good. Visibility was stated to be 10 miles. In practical terms it was unlimited. There was some thin altostratus clouds in the area.At 10:49 PM local time I was outside looking due north at some fireworks and I noticed a very bright orange colored orb. I first thought it was a firework mortar that had been fired as was waiting for it to burst. But the orb grew in intensity and was moving horizontally. I first noticed it about 30 degrees above the horizon and coming from the same area as the base. The object crossed almost overtop of me. I would guess about 70 to 80 degrees above the horizon. It was traveling extremely fast and headed SSE and about 170 degrees. It was much faster then any satellite or jet I've ever witnessed. It appeared to be many times brighter then then ISS or Venus at their brightest apparent magnitude. It was solid in orange color and had steady brightness and having somewhat of a sparkle to it. Possible due to the atmosphere. It had no fiery tail like a meteor. I couldn't see any airplane position lighting or strobes. It was somewhat oblong. Its seemed to have length. It was not round like a satellite appears to be. I tracked it on its southerly heading until it went above a small cloud. It then faded very quickly in the clear just like a satellite going into the Earth's shadow. I'm guessing it was 50 degrees above the horizon when it disappeared. Total observation time was about 2 minutes or less. The speed and bright fiery orange were remarkable. I'm a pilot (not current) and have done much satellite observation. I know cloud movement can play tricks on apparent speed. The clouds were not moving very fast last night and I think the high speed was real.I did not hear any noise at all from the object. There wasn't much wind or much noise from the fireworks either. I usually can hear the noise of commercial jets passing overhead at cruise altitude. I did hear one commercial jet overhead a short time after the sighting. So, the conditions were right for me to hear something from the object. I didn't hear anything, it was completely silent.Sometime later, I not sure on the time. It may have been about 10 minutes. I was looking north again and I saw another Orange object in the sky. This one was in the area of the base. It was 10 or 20 degrees above the horizon. It appeared to be rapidly climbing and moving right to left. Possible climbing northwest. I was thinking it would come overhead like the last one. I ran inside to get my camera and when I came outside it was gone. Also, earlier this spring, about 1:00 AM I spotted my first one and didn't think much about it except for the unusual orange color. This one was moving slower and was much farther to the east of Minot. It faded from view like a satellite would. I thought it was to late to observe a satellite because the Sun was far below the horizon.I googled "red satellite very bright" and came up with a lot of "hits". Apparently, many people are seeing the same thing. [Link moved to additional evidence section/cms/tg] There is even a video"