© Morris StephensonHazel Reese, whose mother lives across the street from the house where the “fireball” struck, takes a closer look at the area where a large piece of bark was knocked off a large pecan tree.
Although the fireball appeared briefly in a burst of thunder during an isolated rain storm, three of five women who were in two houses on Scott Street saw the phenomenon. The electric ball of energy reportedly hit the ground in Mary Elizabeth Park, directly across from their houses.
Janet Brown Gibson of Boones Mill said she was visiting her sister Barbara Hall who owns the white house on the corner of Scott Street and Randolph Street.
Gibson said that during the quick-hitting storm that Wednesday afternoon, she saw a fireball hit the ground in the park and then bounce into the air toward Randolph Street, skidding down one of two big pecan trees behind the Hall house. There is an unusual number of hits in various locations of the trees.
Gibson estimated the celestial object to be between a softball and basketball in size.
Hazel Reese of Glade Hill stays with her mother Martha Seidel during the day at Seidel's house on Scott Street opposite from Hall's house. When the fireball hit, Reese reported she and her mother were in the computer room of the house facing the park. They saw a flash of light followed by a loud crash of thunder.
Reese described the flash several times as being "pinkish in color," or a "pink hue." Both women said electricity in the air made the hair on their arms and neck stand up.
"To me, the flash had a pinkish hue to it," Reese said. "Mother said she saw a yellowish tint in the flash. Afterward, I went outside and the water was pouring down the street from the heavy rain. I also detected the odor of sulfur."
About that time, three women came out of Hall's house including Hall, Gibson and a woman named Deb, according to Reese. It wasn't until then that Reese had a clue as to what happened.
"Barbara said something like, 'it blew the bark off of my (pecan) trees,'" Reese said.
Hall said the fireball ricocheted off a small metal awning over the back door of her house and hit a large pecan tree on the west side of the house, according to what Reese was told. Hall said the fireball started hitting up and down the tree, knocking off small pieces of bark. The fireball then hit the other pecan tree, knocking bark from it as well.
The next day, small and large pieces of bark were scattered on the ground around both trees. Places where the bark had been knocked off were mostly small, the biggest being about three feet in length and several inches wide, as observed by this writer.
Several of the larger pieces of bark appeared to have burned or scorched areas on the underneath side, but the burnt areas had no smell of being electrically burned.
© Morris StephensonVarious sizes of bark were scattered around the trees after the purported fireball dissipated.
Fireballs have been reported sporadically throughout history, going back to the beginning of time and are mentioned in the Bible.
Because of their extremely rare and unpredictable nature, they have not been studied by science in nature.
The News-Post contacted a spokesman for the Blacksburg regional office of the National Weather Service and asked about fireball sightings. He told the News-Post, "a fireball" had never been reported in 20 years, that he knew about.
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