Sphere over Lakehurst, NJ

The report, as filed

While driving to work for midnight shift, as I entered the restricted area where I work on Joint Base, McGuire, Dix, Lakehurst a conjoined three contingent base on the East end of Central New Jersey. The Lakehurst side is Navy and we are 100% Air Craft Carrier Support, building and retro-fitting catapult launch valves, arresting cables use to capture jets as they land, and helicopter landing lights use specifically for carriers which uses lasers to judge height of copters vs. carrier decks in the roughest of seas. As I traveled down the taxiway (our road to the restricted work area) shared with towed aircraft - the F-35 Joint Strike Force Craft, a $350 million fighter jet we are trying to retrofit landing gear for it to successfully land on carrier decks without damaging landing gear - a real and very serious problem. Outside of F-35s and F-18s and a few C-130s, there is no other air traffic in our area. On this recent night I was driving North at 40mph, it was very clear and starry out. From behind and off to my right a bright light was flying across the sky: I thought it was a meteorite entering the atmosphere. But as it moved better into my view, beyond my moon roof and into my front windshield view, it STOPPED in the sky - fully lit and completely stationary. It was up a few thousand feet, had dashed across as fast as a meteor and the instantaneously stopped. I parked the car at the side of the dark road, seeing all the sky in this dark area. I watched the object stay in place and shine as a planet does, not blinking as a star does. Then it just disappeared as if the light it produced was turned off and it seemed to no longer there.

Held as-reported from National UFO Reporting Center (record NUFORC #126868). Witness text is preserved verbatim, including its spelling; nothing is edited beyond formatting.