Red-orange flash reported in skies above Clermont County: ‘I thought it was an explosion’

BETHEL, Ohio (FOX19) — Tim Walker and his daughter Carolyn Walker were taking the trash out Sunday evening at their Bethel home when they saw a flash in the sky.

“I didn’t notice it at first, but we started walking, she was like, ‘Dad! Look at the light in the sky! What is that?'" Tim said. “And if you actually see the video, I stop and actually set the trashcan down, and I’m like, ‘What is that?’”

You can see on their Ring camera the colors in the sky are red and orange with a little pink and purple too.

“In the video, you’ll see it slowly, slowly, and then it gets really bright like dusk or a firework or lightning in the background,” Tim explained.

The father-daughter duo admits it scared them at first. They also say, despite the bright colors and length of the incident, they never heard a sound.

“I was scared,” Carolyn said. “I thought it was an explosion when I first saw it, so it made me really nervous.”

“You see something like that, it kind of takes you back a little bit,” Tim added. “You know, I was in the military. It looks like something you would see in the military.”

Charles Rogers also saw the flash and sent FOX19 NOW a video.

So what caused the flash?

We contacted Clermont County Emergency Management. They have no explanation but did hear from plenty of people reporting the flash.

Bethel Police had the same response.

We also reached out to Duke Energy. According to them, 584 customers lost power for two minutes just before 7 p.m. Sunday. Crews drove that line Monday and found no issues.

We also asked an astronomer if this could be a meteor. He says no because a meteor would flash above the clouds rather than below.

As for lightning, the nearest strike was hundreds of miles away.

We know what it wasn’t. But as of now, what this flash was remains a mystery.

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