Badain Jaran Desert, China: Engineers at drone test see two silent fire masses descend
On August 6, 1998, during a test of China's first supersonic drone at the weapons test base in the Badain Jaran Desert, engineer Zhao Xu and others saw two large, silent fire masses with radiating beams descend from the sky just before take-off and then rise again.
Background
During a test of China's first supersonic drone at the weapons test base in the Badain Jaran Desert (given by Eberhart as Badain Juran Desert, Lanzhou province), engineer Zhao Xu and others saw two large, silent fire masses with radiating beams descend from the sky just as the test drone was about to take off. Zhao asked a cameraman on the observation tower to come down and film the phenomenon. While the cameraman was stumbling down, the two fireballs took off again. The account was published in the Wuhan Evening News in October 2010 and discussed by Bill Chalker in 2023. The account follows the entry in George M. Eberhart's chronology UFOs and Intelligence (CUFOS) and the sources cited there; it is not an independent determination by From Beyond Space.