Once in a while, a meteor will travel laterally through the atmosphere and look more or less like that. I saw one once, and it was freaky. ...looked like a burning piece of trash, going down very slowly in comparison to what we usually see. It was probably headed away and only looked like it had a steep trajectory.
When I was about 12 I saw something falling from the sky at just before twilight. It was getting dark, but not yet. All the kids in the neigborhood saw it and the best we could describe it, it looked like a burning plane crashing. It was a huge fireball, and we were sure it was close. The next day we found out it was a meteor that landed two states over!