I live about 25 miles east of the Oak Ridge National laboratory. A lot of top secret testing goes on at this place. It's home to the infamous "Manhattan Project" & where the 1st atomic bombs were built & tested. I see military helicopters fly over my head just about every-other day. I've seen tons of weird shit fly to & from that place; stuff that doesn't quite seem terrestrial in nature, but who knows what kind of stuff they've built there.

A couple years back, I was sitting downstairs watching TV, when my brother comes running down the stairs to my living room (we inherited a house, & live together, it's a 2 story split-level, w/stairs from the foyer where the front door is that lead up to his level, &/or down to my level.) & comes in & says "you HAVE to see this.". I was lazily laying on the couch & reluctantly got up, not knowing what to expect. I walk out the door & see him standing on the porch & he says "What. The. Fuck. Is that?" & it's this extremely bright, large ball of light. It was gold w/a greenish hue to it. It sort of looked like it was just a big ball of fire that was coming right for us. I thought it was like a meteor or something, but it was barely moving, & it seemed to be gaining altitude, instead of falling. It was almost directly above where the facility is, so if not a meteor, I thought maybe was it was some kind of nuclear powered rocket or plane or something.

After about 5 minutes of it just gradually gaining altitude, this vivid, luminous ball of gold/green light, it just shut off. Suddenly, instead a light came on that was more familiar & similar to conventional aircraft. Then we start to hear engine noise, & realize whatever it is was about to fly right over our heads. As it grew closer, it became much louder, & we could make out the shape of an airplane of sorts. When this thing got over my head, it was in-fact a plane of some kind, but the engine noise was deafening; it rattled the windows to our house, & it looked unlike anything I'd ever seen. It was shaped a-lot like a an sr-71 black bird, except the wingspan was wider, & on the underside it had all of these golden lights that were in the formation of a star, a green blinking light in front, & white & blue lights on the tips of the wings (2 on each side). The most impressive feature was that at the rear of whatever kind of aircraft this was, it had a rocket booster, & it was shooting out this bluish-orange flame that extended out about half the length of the entire craft. Whatever this thing was, it was absolutely magnificent.

I'm still under the impression that it was some kind of nuclear powered plane, & my brother & I were just lucky enough to see a top-secret test flight or something, but honestly I have no idea what it was. Your story reminded me of that thing, & I thought maybe these were similar crafts? Did you happen to hear any engine noise along w/it, & were any of the features I described similar to what you saw by any chance?