Florida, c. 1982, 1982

I would like some help identifying what I saw. It was the end of 1982 or the beginning of 83, and I was helping my brother-in-law catfishing (he did this for a living).

We were fishing in the Ochloconee river south of Tallahassee, Florida, and we just baited one line and we were headed to the next when we turned a corner and ahead of us we saw what looked like the top of a pine tree on our left was on fire!

As we were getting closer (about 75 feet) we slowed down, and then we saw this big ball of fire about the size of a VW car with a short tail break through the tops of the trees.

The river at this point was a little over 100 FT, as we had a catfish line across the river that was 112 ft. long.

It took almost 15 seconds to cross the river and not a sound could be heard.

I put my hand up to try and see if there was something else to it besides the fire, but could not cover it with one hand. My first thought was this is a comet, but as I said, it came through the top of the pine trees and when it got to the other side of the river we could see it pass just over the tops of the trees and when it passed over them, the trees were swaying back and forth.

This has bothered me every since I saw it, because I just could not figure out what it was, and someone told me about you site the other day and someone here might have an idea what could be.

Any help on this one would be great. I'm sending this drawing of what it looked like.

Thanks,

S.Brown