Diamond over Santa Ana, CA

The report, as filed

I was walking outside of my building at work this afternoon and I heard some birds making noises overhead. I looked up to see what they were and when I did, I saw this small, shiny object in the sky that caught my attention. I stopped to watch it. It was similar to what a bright star would look like at night, only this was during the day time. It was about 1:45 PM, and it was sunny and clear, no clouds. I sat down at a picnic table and watched this “star” looking object. After a few seconds, it started to glimmer so I figured it must be something metallic. Since I had no idea what it was and what the size of it was, it was hard for me to judge the altitude of this object. But if I had to guess, I would say it was between 5 -8,000 feet high. I started thinking to myself what it could be. It wasn’t a star because it was moving but it wasn’t moving fast enough to be a satellite. It was glimmering when the sun would catch it. It would go from a dull white color to a bright silver color at random intervals. At one point when it was nearest to my location (it moved away slowly over time) the sun caught it and this silver object appeared to have a silver appendage below it that was shaped like a stubby pencil. This appendage was also metallic as the sun lit it up and it was pointed straight down from the object. At this point I started to think it was a weather balloon. But then I was thinking that most weather balloons are non-metallic and the payload is usually wrapped in Styrofoam or some material that would cushion the instruments during a fall. The wind was blowing in its normal direction, from the southwest to the northeast which is the typical wind direction for our area. This object, however, was moving from east to west and eventually headed towards the north. It was moving very slow. (In total, I watched the object for at least 45 minutes and it moved only what would be about 10-12 degrees from east to west.) After about 15 minutes of watching this object, the security guard for our business came along and we started watching it together. Then a few of our employees came outside to see what we were looking at and they saw it too. After a few minutes, one of the other employees said, “Oh look, there is a second object now…it’s above the other one.” So I looked up about 5-7 degrees above the initial object and I saw a second object that was very similar. This second object was also glimmering in the sunlight, except this one had an obvious reddish color to it. The second object was moving away from the first object in a completely different direction, in a northwest to southeast direction in almost a perfect arc. It was glimmering pretty regularly almost like it was tumbling and the sun was catching it. I started to think that maybe this was a satellite but after about 2 minutes, it slowed down. It had been moving laterally at a pretty good speed and now it was almost stationary. Like the first object, this second object would also glimmer in the sunlight occasionally with its reddish hue. I stayed there looking at both objects for a few more minutes and I ultimately said to our security guard that I had to get back inside and go back to work. About three minutes later, the security guard called me to tell me that he could now see what looked like a “tail” on the initial object. What he described to me sounded like the “appendage” that I had seen earlier. I had taken a video of the initial object with my phone. When I got back to my desk, I looked at the video. Of course the video is blurry and the object has no edge definition since the camera was trying to focus on infinity. As I write this narrative, the security guard is still outside watching the objects.

Held as-reported from National UFO Reporting Center (record NUFORC #117174). Witness text is preserved verbatim, including its spelling; nothing is edited beyond formatting.