Sphere over Joliet, IL

The report, as filed

I was on my way home tonight at about 9:15 Central time. I saw what appeared to be a round ball of fire hovering in the sky above the Louis Joliet Mall here in Joliet, IL. It was red or red-orange in color with some yellow streaks in it. It literally looked like someone picked up a flame and somehow enclosed it in a globe. It looked like it was at about the height that a helicopter would fly at but did not appear to be moving. The mall parking lot has large lights on tall poles and this was much larger than the lights and seemed to be almost perfectly round. I pulled off into my subdivision which has a lot of trees and drove slowly down the street and could see it on and off between the trees and I stopped once to look at it. It didn't move and I rolled down the windows to listen for sounds of a airplane or helicopter. I heard nothing. I drove further up the street and lost it momentarily because of a large group of trees and then stopped at a large clearing and had an open view of the sky to the north. Nothing was in sight. I drove a block back to the south to a school parking lot so I could see in all directions and nothing was in sight. The thing had completely disappeared in a matter of about 5 minutes. I've never seen anything like this and never heard of any UFO sightings that fit this description, but I'm convinced that this was not any kind of an airplane or helicopter. I'm a retired educator and I think I'm pretty observant. This is the second time I've seen a possible UFO, but the first time was nothing as spectacular as this, and it was in Minnesota. I don't know how frequently such sightings occur in this area.

Held as-reported from National UFO Reporting Center (record NUFORC #109687). Witness text is preserved verbatim, including its spelling; nothing is edited beyond formatting.