Sphere over Napa, CA
A witness account on file, unevaluated. Most of the archive rests here, and honestly so.
The report, as filed
I do star parties for hire with a large telescope I designed and built. At 12:50 a.m., I was going east on Trancas Street in Napa, CA, heading home from a star party. I observed a large orange/red circular light over about the area of the Queen of the Valley Hospital, about a quarter mile away from my position, moving slowly north to south, maybe 500-750 feet high (it looked lower than an airplane at pattern altitude). The diameter of the circular light I observed I'd say was on the order of about the diameter of the length of a small airplane viewed at that distance, perhaps a bit smaller, so while very subjective, perhaps in the range of 20' diameter. As I watched it slowly moving, it dropped a large light out of it! It fell straight down! And then it dropped another and another and then a whole string of maybe 6 or more! And more smaller lights shot out the top of the thing going up! I did get some pictures but of course they're not great. The lights were BRIGHT, and a dark reddish orange in color. ((ADDENDUM FROM WITNESS)) I have enough doubt now that I should rescind my report I made yesterday re. Napa, CA. I think it was a tribute balloon on fire a lot closer to me than I thought.
Held as-reported from National UFO Reporting Center (record NUFORC #133771). Witness text is preserved verbatim, including its spelling; nothing is edited beyond formatting.
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Routed to: Federal Aviation Administration · records window 2017-04-20 → 2017-05-07
From the same sky
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