September 29, 1999 at 1:00 am Eastern Standard Time Pittsburgh, PA I was sitting in my living room trying to study for a psychology exam. It was very windy that day and thunderstorm reports had been in the news. It started raining very heavily and thunder and lightning began. I was watching "Politically Incorrect with Bill Maher" when I saw the strangest thing out of the corner of my eye. Our window spans the width of the living room, and I looked out the window and saw what looked to be a floating greenish ball. It was floating 25-30 feet above the street. It was about the size of a basketball. It was green and seemed to glow, making the air around it greenish in color. All of a sudden it grew brighter and larger and then burst in the air. It illuminated the sky. All this happened in a matter of about 15-20 seconds. About 2 minutes after the ball exploded, our power went out and stayed out until 10:15 am the next morning. NOTE: This is an anonymized actual report. It is very helpful because it mentions the weather outside as well as the size, behavior, and lifetime of the ball. The actual report also had the street address. An ideal report would also explain any observations of the appearance or disappearance of the ball and estimate its approximate distance from the observer.