I was leaving my girlfriend's house in Socorro, TX at 2:30 a.m. on May 2, 2015, heading back to the main street from her subdivision, when I noticed a bright orange circle in the night sky. I was travelling westbound and the object was traveling towards me in a southeastern direction. The circle first appeared just to be a star or maybe a meteorite given the clear night sky, but it began to grow in brightness and then I noticed what appeared to be a conical exhaust coming out from the bottom of the object, which is unlike a plan that would have the exhaust visible behind it, not underneath it. I had lit a cigarette and had my windows rolled down but I heard no noise to accompany what I was witnessing in the sky.

I pull over to try and get a better view of this and then the object grows in brightness and then suddenly dims and disappears and then all of my truck's lights went out, inside and outside, but my engine kept running. I switched them on and off and after about ten seconds they just suddenly came on. I noticed that the time on my CD player hadn't reset, which usually occurs when the power to the CD player is cut off (i.e. a dead battery or disconnecting the battery to work on the engine). I felt very numb and was at a loss of what to feel after witnessing that. I knew I was scared because of what I had just witnessed but was also very curious as I turned my truck around and drove around the neighborhood hoping to view the object once more or see something in the sky or on the ground that might help me make sense of what had occurred.

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I was sitting in my fathers' backyard looking N/NW at the Big Dipper and Polaris, when all of a sudden there was a bright flareup approx 10 deg W and 5 deg above Polaris (North Star). It lasted approx 2-3 seconds but appeared to last much longer. First it started as a small ignition, as lighting a flare, and ended with a luminous flare up before it dissipated. Like a tiny sun. This was not a flare as the position was fixed, no movement at all except for the burst of light. Having been in the military, I'm very familiar how flares react in the sky. It's been windy here and dusty to boot so the light/illumination was obscured by dust particles I imagine and therefore was yellowish to orange in color. This was not a moving object. I would classify this as an astronomical event and was very excited to witness whatever this event was, possibly a novae. As a stargazer since my teens, I've witnessed many strange lights in the sky but nothing ever like this. I don't believe I will ever witness anything like this in my life again and have searched the internet to find an appropriate institution to report this to but could only find MUFON to be the most reliable source to do so. I am hoping that you can forward this to the proper entity as I feel there has to be some recording of this event to confirm what I witnessed. Was truly spectacular and amazing. There are no hills/mountains in the distance so it could not be far off headlights at least not for the size of the illumination that I witnessed. After the illumination ended, I waited another 30 minutes staring at the spot where it ignited to see if it would repeat and nothing. I'm very fortunate to have witnessed this I believe. Thank you for this site and an opportunity to log my observation.