I have filled out this form before and reported my first ufo encounter a while ago. the first time i was extremely afraid. my second time was very different and didn't scare me at all. it did leave me questioning my sanity back then however.So i didn't tell anybody about it until i was about 35. i was often going to castle nideggen at night with a friend.We usually just walked around the castle, went on one of the towers to the west and watched the view while talking about mostly meaningless personal things. we didn't have contact for a while and didn't go to the castle for about 1-2 years and then he visited me and we had nothing better to do and decided to go to the castle again. when we arrived there it was about 21:40 and already dark outside. (my friends name is thomas küntzler and he lives in drove too) i don't recall exactly where we went first in the castle. its possible that we first walked up to the top of the south-west tower (which is the only one intact) and then we walked to the remains of the south-east tower. (there is a metal gate now and its locked now for whatever reason.) on the tower (its not very high) we started talking like usual. i was facing my friend and looking to the west. i could see the ruhr river valley from my position and had a good view in the direction of the town of brück and schmidt. while my friend was talking to me suddenly the clouds lit up in one spot and something came out of it very fast like a shooting star. it looked just like a shooting star but it was closer and brighter. in the first moment i thought it would come down somewhere south of schmidt but then it flew into the ruhr valley which was only 1-2 kilometers away approx.. i was somewhat excited to see that and expected the shooting star to hit the ground where i can see it down in the ruhr valley. but when it hit the ground(or the tree tops...Not sure) it seemed to bounce off without loosing speed and it came flying exactly in my direction and vanished about 15-20 meters away from me into nothing. it was a large ball of light about 10 meters (probably larger) in size. that all happened so quickly that i wasn't really able to react to it at all until the object was already gone. my friend thomas had his back turned towards the ruhr valley (he was facing me) and didn't even notice it. he just noticed that i was looking at him confused and wasnt paying attetion to what he was saying suddenly. back then i did not tell him(or anybody else) what i witnessed because usually nobody believes you and people later think your some kind of crazy person who wants to get attention.