Sphere over Minnetonka, MN
A witness account on file, unevaluated. Most of the archive rests here, and honestly so.
The report, as filed
Slow moving very large sphere-like object which appeared to be enveloped in a white opaque cloud, moving in a steady line from the south-south east to the north-North west. There was faint aurora boriealis and it appears the steady moving object which kept its straight and steady movement was attempting to be disguising itself in the faint natural light show. No sound, no blinking lights, just a soft whitish glow that appeared to be enveloped in a cloud moving at the speed of a giant low flying jet at a very slow speed. About the size of a full moon against the stars. Watched it for approximately 4 minutes until it faded into the distant North to northwest sky. THIS WAS NOT AN AIRPLANE. My first thought was, "Someone else must be seeing this right now..." It felt like it was aware that I was watching it. ((BEGIN COPIED NOTE FROM MR. TED MOLCZAN)) Hello Peter, Your hunch probably is correct. The Sentinel 2A satellite was launched on a Vega rocket from the Guiana Space Center, last night at 9:52 PM EDT (Jun 23 01:52 UTC). Coverage of the launch was here: http://spaceflightnow.com/2015/06/22/vv05-mission-status-center/ SeeSat-L received several reports of sightings near 23:49 EDT (3:49 UTC), of what appears to have been exhaust from the final burn of the Vega rocket's AVUM liquid fueled upper stage. That burn lowered the perigee to ensure that the object decays from orbit within a reasonable time, in order to curb the growth of space debris. http://satobs.org/seesat/Jun-2015/0193.html http://satobs.org/seesat/Jun-2015/0194.html http://satobs.org/seesat/Jun-2015/0195.html http://satobs.org/seesat/Jun-2015/0198.html http://satobs.org/seesat/Jun-2015/0199.html Marco Langbroek blogged his analysis: http://sattrackcam.blogspot.nl/2015/06/aurora-hunter-images-last-moments-of.html Please let me know if you have any questions or comments. Best regards, Ted Out-gassing event of spent rocket. PD
Held as-reported from National UFO Reporting Center (record NUFORC #119704). Witness text is preserved verbatim, including its spelling; nothing is edited beyond formatting.
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Routed to: Federal Aviation Administration · records window 2015-06-19 → 2015-07-06
From the same sky
Related entries
August 31, 2019 · 10:44 PM · OVAL
Minnetonka, MN
it was 10:44 pm when my friend and i saw the lights. we were parked on a side part of the road where excelsior blvd and saint albany’s bay rd intersect at (44.9066, -93.5380). it overlooks a highway and it has a good, clear view of the sky. we saw the lights in the sky and thought it looked weird. we couldn’t see any objects because it was kind of cloudy where the lights were so you could only see the lights through the clouds. my friend thought the lights were from the high school football field lights so we drove there (about 5 mins away from where we were parked) but it wasn’t. the lights were a white color and were in the form of an oval from where we were but i feel like it would look like a circle if we were directly under it. the lights in the shape were not a solid oval, there were breaks in between the lights. the oval also looked like it was a pretty big size too. we couldn’t really see it move considering we were moving most of the time in the car to try to find possible answers. we only saw one but it could have been 10-ish small objects in the form of an oval. We suspect that the witnesses were observing the advertising lights being projected on the bottoms of clouds by a local casino. PD
August 22, 2019 · 4:00 AM · CYLINDER
Minnetonka, MN
I was driving to work early in the morning and noticed double-layered lights surrounding a massive circular object in the sky around 494 and Minnetonka Blvd. At first, I thought it was just street lights or a special billboard. However, I kept staring at it and could longer explain what it actually was. I just knew that there was not supposed to be any bright lights in that particular area of the sky. I parked my car in the parking lot and got out with my camera phone. But the UFO was already gone. This was the closest that I have ever seen one. Witness indicates that the date of the sighting is approximate. PD
July 15, 2019 · 11:26 PM · DISK
Minnetonka, MN
i was driving home when i saw 6 lights in a perfect circle with one light on top, the lights were moving fast and launched upwards all of a sudden, and the circle shape was gone without a trace. i had been hearing weird noises outside before hand. the lights were white in color. there was 3 things flying, what looked like planes at first, but had 5 lights and huge beams of light shining forward.
July 12, 2019 · 9:40 PM
Minnetonka, MN
Saw strange lights in the southern sky around 9:40pm from Minnetonka, MN. I was in the trail parking lot near 494 after jogging when my son pointed at the sky and said, “Shooting star! Make a wish.” I turned and saw a streak of light low in the sky, apparently moving fairly slow (I was briefly concerned it was heading in our direction). It began shedding individual lights, which I thought might be a meteor breaking up. Then the streak turned east and split up into 3-4 more lights that spread out and moved back and forth like helicopters circling something. They all gradually descended and disappeared behind the tree-line. I watched for a couple of minutes, but nothing came back up. I’d estimate it was in the direction of Shokapee...distance was very difficult to determine because they were just lights in an otherwise clear sky. Anyway, weird event...the lights certainly didn’t move in a familiar way, but there wasn’t any good frame of reference. Really curious what that was. Witness elects to remain totally anonymous; provides no contact information. PD
August 11, 2018 · 7:00 AM · CIRCLE
Minnetonka, MN
8/11/2018 7 a.m. I was driving east on Cedar Lake Road between Cty. Rd. 73 and Hwy. 169. The Sun was this gorgeous orange ball low on the horizon. Then it started to move. I realized at that point that the sky was heavily overcast; there were thousands of feet of clouds between me and the real Sun. Whatever this thing was it was lower than the clouds. I can't say how big it was; large enough for me to mistake it for the Sun for a moment. It didn't move aerodynamically; it bounced around on the south side of the road before crossing over and quickly descending behind the trees on the north side. It was in view for 1-2 minutes. It didn't change size, shape, or color. It was featureless; just a perfect circle of bright orange. I checked the local papers and the Internet, but haven't seen any reports from anyone who might have seen it. I have no idea what it was. It didn't have the ephemeral feeling of reflected light; it seemed very solid. It did nothing that frightened me; it just wasn't supposed to be there.
June 12, 2017 · 12:00 PM · LIGHT
Minnetonka, MN
Source of the report elects to remain anonymous; provides no contact information. PD