My wife and I were hiking in the vicinity of Montgomery Park in East San
Jose (approx. half a mile away from the Evergreen Valley College's new
observatory.)
We happened to be looking at this fireball almost dead on. It came down at
perhaps a 5 to 10 degree angle from the vertical. No sound.
It was due south of us, very intense, and the color changed from vivid
green (the upper 80% of the trace) to vivid yellow (the lower 20%). The
shape of the object was not a smooth disintegrating ball, it rather looked
a tortured object that burned unevenly, with certain parts of it burning
more intense then others. This was very visible during the "yellow" phase.
It did not disintegrate while it burned, but it was probably close to it.
It may have come apart after it extinguished.
It extinguished before it hit the ground.
From where we were, it looked like possible remnants could have landed in
the Villages.
At first we thought it were fireworks, but the trajectory and the lack of
sound were so un-firework-like that it must have been something else. The
speed of descent was not as high as what one usually sees from a meteor, it
was perhaps half that, but it was much faster then what one would expect
from fireworks. The whole event took between 1 and 2 seconds.
Noel.
At 15:39 7/10/2003, you wrote:
>It would be interesting to get reports from people in Livermore
>or other locations east of Mt. Hamilton.
>
>Rich
>
> >It was reported on KRON TV 11 p.m. news.
> >
> >Mark