Sphere over Colfax, NC

The report, as filed

On the evening of July 4th, not long after sunset, my girlfriend and I were driving West on Business 40 (we had just passed Interstate 40/Business 40 split) and noticed a bright, glowing orange orb passing in front of us above the tree line at approximately 50-75 ft above the ground, moving in a direction from our left or out of the south, towards our right, or to the north. We both noticed it immediately because both of our eyes were transfixed at the sky because we had just witnessed a lot of fireworks just above the tree tops as we drove out of Greensboro heading towards Winston-Salem, with it being Independence Day. My first thought was that we were viewing a falling ember from an exploded firework cascading down from the sky, however it was quickly evident that this wasn't true because the small craft was clearly flying in a trajectory perpendicular to our vehicle not losing altitude. We were both very intrigued and I quickly looked in my rearview to che! ck for other cars, and slowed down to get a better look. The orange light kind of resembled a flame almost like an oil lamp, with a distinct glowing orb surrounding it. The only thing that I could reasonably think that this small craft could be was a drone, possibly attempting to get views of the evening fireworks, however several factors lead me away from this assumption, because there were no houses or business around the area. It was a darkened and desolate portion of the highway, with trees on both sides and neither myself nor my girlfriend saw any wings or any identifying signs that would lead us to believe it was a manmade drone or craft. Drones typically need the operator to be fairly close, and with no homes or side streets anywhere near the area a drone seems unlikely, especially when it was fully dark and a drone would seemingly have no photographic value in darkness. Both me and my girlfriend were very interested in what we had saw and neither of us could explain! it. There is no possible way it was a firework or ember acting weird or caught in the wind, it was definitely flying. I wish I would have had more time to view the craft and contemplated pulling to the side of the roadway, but more cars were coming up behind us and the vehicle was close to crossing the tree line on the northern side of the road. Neither of us can identify what we saw, albeit briefly.

Held as-reported from National UFO Reporting Center (record NUFORC #120138). Witness text is preserved verbatim, including its spelling; nothing is edited beyond formatting.