A Most Amazing Rare Sighting!

This morning I saw the most incredible thing! I was out for a power walk
near the capital, heading south. I turn to the east and saw in the sky a
string of lights in a streak that I immediately thought was a bright
meteor trail. But when it did not vanish I stopped in my tracks and
stared unbelieving. Here was a string of about 15 or 20 lights, like a
string of pearls, apparently unmoving.

I stared in astonishment for a long time, thinking, ‘could this be a string of lights hanging from a tree? Something trailed by a plane?’ I realized after several long moments that I had my phone with me and though the sky was pitch black I pulled it out and tried to take some photos. I managed to get several photos, trying to zoom in. I couldn’t even tell if I was even pointing at the right part of the sky, so I put the phone away. (Turns out I got 6 time stamped over 16 seconds*). After about a minute I began walking to try to find a better vantage point. “This can’t be real! How am I being fooled? What IS this?”

It was only after a couple of minutes that I realized the lights were in fact falling and fading at the same time.

By the time the lights faded out I was speculating that this must have been the trail of a meteor that left a string of glowing bits that then floated down slowly. The only thing I can imagine is that they were both large enough to stay white hot for a minute or more and so incredibly far away and falling so slowly as to appear stationery. 

I have never heard of such a long meteor trail! I am still flummoxed, just reporting what I saw. If anyone has any insights, please let me know.

In the following image I placed atop the original photo #5 the sequence of the fall, numbered in sequence. (Incidentally, the house lights that appear on the right edge are in the governor’s mansion!) I have alerted an astronomer I know. I’m eager to hear how many others saw this! The longest meteor I’ve ever heard about is the big one that blew up over Russia a few years ago. I kick myself for not being more attentive! How long had that string been hanging in the sky before I looked?

* The time stamps were from 4:22:00 to 4:22:16 AM, MST. One of the 7 photos was wild and got nothing but black sky, so is not included. The others have been enhanced and cropped to show the string as comparably as possible. Some are in better focus than others. I had walked about 40 yards from the first to the last, so you can see the streak appearing to move sideways in relation to the trees, as well as descending in the sky.

I’ve tried to arrange the photos in different ways to track the event, all of which are enhanced to a great degree to bring out the contrast, but of course kept copies of the originals.  The length of the streak was slightly less than that of my fist held at arm’s length, which I think is about 8˙.