SIGHTING: SPRINGFIELD, MISSOURI (UNITED STATES)

Witness Testimony

"I was out side smoking and the neighbors a block or so from me were doing fireworks.I have a lot of trees in my back yard that block out a lot of the sky. But coming from my left side I saw an amber light moving very quickly. I would compare the speed to the plane. It flew overhead about 20 seconds after I lost the light in the trees. The plane was heading the opposite direction, I live in the flight path of Springfield's airport. I could clearly hear and see the plane, but I could tell there was no sound coming from the light. It made no sound at all. I also thought the airport wouldn't have a flight take off and have one land heading basically at each other that closely timed.My first obvious thought was the Chinese lanterns-it's the fourth of July, I realize people let those go and can be perceived as a UFO. There was/is no wind, the NOAA site says it's a 6mph wind-heading NE, not NW! Additionally, the height, I didn't think the lanterns could get that high in the air. I have also seen the International space station, as well as the Tiangong-1 on several occasions, but I've never seen them an amber colored.I saw an amber light before, several years ago, August 2011, maybe 2012? iI was living in Branson-a town about an hour away. That time, the amber light just ascended from behind a hill hit a cloud I could see the entire cloud-but the light never popped out, above the cloud. My wife and animals were all inside tonight, so no one was affected or had seen the object.The picture is terrible light (most phone pictures are). It's all I had at the time and not sure if you can clean it up but I know I got the object, rather the picture reveals it or not! AND the fact that it's almost the fourth of July makes me a bit skeptical, but I am always looking up for one of the UFOs to get me excellent footage one day! -Been a MUFON member for couple years now."