Teardrop over New York City (upper West Side), NY

The report, as filed

At around 14:30 I saw a silver object that looked like a balloon. It floated West, across Amsterdam Avenue and about 65th Street in NYC. It floated in the West/North West direction, out towards the Hudson River. At around 18:31 pm I was walking South on Riverside Drive, at around 71st Street, when I noticed a group of these same “balloons” floating West towards the Hudson River. They looked like balloons, but they also looked like UFOs. They were coming from a completely different direction and time than the one I had previously seen. There were approximately four UFOs in this small group. As they ascended, they all moved at the same speed towards the sun, making it hard to see them. One of the objects didn’t float in formation. It proceeded to move swiftly, heading North, before banking and heading South, now above the Hudson River. It did this a few times, changing direction smoothly. At the same time, it seemed to move in the general direction of the other objects. If they were a lot closer, I imagine they would have been relatively large balloons. The objects were silver, and, if they WERE aircraft, I imagine they were small…smaller than a car. If they were balloons, they were large balloons. The part that REALLY drew my attention was the time difference between the two sightings. There is no way that the one balloon I saw, descended to the earth, found three more balloons like it, then proceeded to ascend back on its course, four hours after the first sighting. Maybe there was an event in NYC, where a lot of silver balloons were let off…it was strange. I have some video of the two events. We spoke via telephone with the witness, and he sounded to us to be quite eloquent and serious-minded. We suspect that he is a highly reliable witness. PD

Held as-reported from National UFO Reporting Center (record NUFORC #133690). Witness text is preserved verbatim, including its spelling; nothing is edited beyond formatting.