|
| ©Unknown |
| Thanks to Cari Jostad for this photo taken through binoculars. She's one of many reporting having saw this image in Sioux Falls' western sky Thursday evening. |
"Just like a fireball. I can't explain it any better than that," said Cari Jostad, who was outside with her two boys when they noticed what she describes as a burning ball of fire. "You could see planes flying by and you know they would come and go, but this just kept the same line and kept going."
She quickly grabbed her camera and took photo after photo, which can be viewed by clicking the link in this article. Cari wanted a closer look to see what these things were.
"Looking through the binoculars it was... it looked like a fire ball," she said. Her husband Bob sent several photos to KSFY looking for answers, so we contacted the National Weather Service (NWS).
NWS examined three of the photos and determined it could be explained by a contrail. A contrail forms when a passing jet leaves water vapor in the air. The vapor freezes and the sun does the rest.
"The angle of the sun was just right to give you a different atmospheric phenomena that made it look like it was a comet or some other sort of atmospheric phenomena," said NWS' Shawn Liebl. He said that would make sense because the sun was setting at the time the sightings were reported, but said he'd have to have video evidence to know for sure.
For the Jostads and others who saw this phenomena, they'd like to know exactly what it was. Then again, their boys think they have the answer --- Transformers coming to save the world.
KSFY tried contacting NASA for more information, but they were unavailable after hours.
If that's a contrail then the jet leaving it was totally on fire!