SIGHTING: DE SOTO, MISSOURI (UNITED STATES)

Witness Testimony

"Driving about half-way home from a st. louis round trip of 136 miles taking someone to farmington, in the clear night sky tue jan 7 2020 at 9:17 pm ct i suddenly saw a neon-green meteor in my direct field of vision. at an almost 45 degree angle it appeared upper right, streaking towards the earth directly in front of me. closer to the horizon it went out after it had thickened during its descent, seemingly having burned out by becoming thinner again then. it suddenly reappeared after apparently continuing on its path, and went out just before it appeared it would hit the earth or go over the horizon. when it went out, it became a ball! i was taken aback by that clearly round ball of light and that it clearly disappeared (did not burn out) clearly before hitting the earth or crossing the horizon. that part looked more like a fireball. i started wondering what i saw. having interest in the day and night sky since a child, at 59 i've seen many meteors over the years. in real-time my eye sees a meteor as a dash of light streaking across the sky, not the full trail of light as seen in meteor photographs. this meteor's tail stayed lit until it seemingly burned out, as in a photograph. the same with the second streak, lit until the ball seemingly disappeared. the constant neon-green color was stunningly obvious. i've seen and heard of meteor's changing color (though usually white), from the various metals the meteor consists of. this did not change color at all. i personally confirmed the color a few minutes later passing a gas station with a neon-green sign. i have never personally seen a meteor break up, but have seen videos of meteors/ objects breaking up. broken pieces fan out along other paths even if the original object continues to burn while breaking up in its path. meteors don't usually become a ball of light when they disappear, a fireball, larger in diameter than the streaking light it came from. meteors usually brighten in high magnitude shortly after becoming visible, then streak out in a thin line. this never had that high magnitude burst early brightness. it was not like any meteor i've ever seen before. i have heard of the neon-green fireballs. the associated image was taken from google maps from the location i saw it. i altered the day image darker, and added the neon-green "meteor" "fireball" as best i can depict i saw it."