Possible UFO over Camp Creek Bald area

[Tennessee Viking]

Objects In The Night Sky: Maybe Air Balloons?

http://greenevillesun.com/story/304655/1

Source: The Greeneville Sun

More residents of southern Greene County have called The Greeneville Sun concerning sightings of strange objects in the night sky earlier this week.
Also on Thursday, an East Tennessee State University astronomy professor said, after reviewing a photo taken on Monday night, that the object was not a meteor.
Peter Hasterlik, a Heaven's Gate Lane resident, said that he and his wife on Monday night saw a bright object, which he described as a white light, moving along the Camp Creek Bald (Viking Mountain) and Meadow Creek Mountain.
The object suddenly "shot straight up" and disappeared as they watched, Hasterlik said.
Also on Monday night, Pauline and Carl Petsel, of Birds Bridge Road, saw, and photographed an object that glowed orange in the same area.
Hasterlik telephoned the Sun on Thursday after an article that outlined what the Petsels saw and one of their photos was published in the newspaper.
Karen Smith, an Asheville Highway resident, said in a voice-mail message left for a Sun reporter on Friday that her family had seen strange objects in the night sky on both July 2 and July 3.
SEEN FOR SIX YEARS
An Ebenezer Road resident who also saw the Thursday article called on Friday morning to say that she had been seeing for the last six years orange and white, balloon-like, objects in the night sky along the mountains that mark Greene County's border with North Carolina.
The caller, who asked that her name not be used, said the bright objects appear sporadically throughout the year, often near the top of Camp Creek Bald.
She noted that she has never heard any sound associated with the objects, although her dogs sometimes refuse to leave the house when the objects are active.
"It's not an airplane, or a balloon, or a helicopter," the woman said. "They don't move like that."
POSSIBLY BALLOONS?
A Wayland Drive resident called on Thursday to say she thinks glowing objects in the night sky earlier this week over southern Greene County were some type of balloons.
Angie Hopson, who lives on Wayland Drive off the Asheville Highway said she, her husband and another couple saw on a recent night between 10:30 p.m. and 11 p.m. a total of seven glowing orange objects that moved across the night sky toward Camp Creek.
She said she wasn't sure which recent night the objects were seen, but noted that it was sometime since July 4.
"They looked like hot-air balloons," she said, noting that her neighbors, Mike and Tonya Jones, used binoculars to observe the second set of glowing objects as they passed across the face of the full moon.
Hopson said the two couples saw three glowing objects about 10:30 p.m. and four more about 11 p.m.
Only when the second set of objects passed across the face of the full moon were the observers able to make out what they looked like.
The first set had appeared only as objects that glowed a fiery orange color, Hopson said.
She noted that her neighbors had searched the Internet in an effort to learn if any balloon races or scientific experiments might have been taking place but had been unable to learn anything.
NOT A METEOR
Also on Thursday, an ETSU astronomy professor who reviewed a photo of a glowing object that had been taken by Pauline Petsel of Birds Bridge Road on Monday night said the object was definitely not a meteor.
Dr. Donald Luttermoser said he thought the glowing object might have been a flare dropped by a military aircraft as part of a training exercise.
He noted that he had seen reports of similar objects near an Air Force base in Michigan when he lived there before moving to Tennessee.
PETSELS' REPORT
On Tuesday, Carl and Pauline Petsel, of Birds Bridge Road, reported having seen a fast-moving, fiery object in the sky about 10:30 p.m. Monday near their home.
They said they didn't know what the object was that they and a friend, who was visiting their home, saw about 10:30 p.m. Monday.
Carl Petsel, a retired St. Petersburg, Fla., police officer, said he first noticed the object in the night sky as he looked south toward Camp Creek Bald in an attempt to see fireworks.
He noted that the object was moving rapidly in a southerly direction toward the mountains that form the border with North Carolina.
Carl Petsel said he is convinced that the object was moving away from the area where fireworks were being shot into the air by a neighbor and appeared to be moving faster than space satellites he has seen in the past.
After he told his wife and their friend, Patti Ritter, what he had seen, Carl Petsel said, his wife, who is a skilled amateur photographer, rushed outside and took several photos of the fleeting object with a digital camera.
The Petsels later shared their photos with The Greeneville Sun.