Sphere over North Dayton, OH

The report, as filed

I don't know whether what I saw this night was real or something I worked up a bit in my head. Since August 2017, I have seen red/orange orb UFO's flying near, and even directly above, my home in north Dayton. But on this night in October, an approximate date and time, I was outside alone and saw from the west the now-familiar bright red glow (which, as it begins to move into view, appears incredibly large) as if one of the objects was about to approach from due west as was their most common direction of approach. But this night the bright red glow did not seem to be moving, or moving west to east; instead, it appeared to be stopped 600 hundred or so yards west of me, low enough that it was actually hovering only around 10-12 feet above the ground in a neighbor's yard. While the the object appeared just as large as had all prior objects, this particular one was not only stationary, lower (at under treetop level), there were two other unusual occurrences. First, there were shadows which seemed superimposed over the brilliant red light. These shadows moved like humans except with jerkier movements; two or three were tall while one was short. Second, while there was (as always) no sound produced by the object, while these shadows seemed to move in front of the red light, I heard what I can best describe as "whispered internal static" -- it was not something heard aurally, but more like feeling vibrations and recognizing these as speech, somehow. Though the red orbs have never made me the least bit nervous before, this night, after the object again lifted into the air following its traditional path of flight, I watched it only until it was about halfway through the route before going inside. I wasn't nervous as much as I was confused by what I'd seen. I didn't trust myself and so I almost immediately decided it must have been neighbors with a Chinese lantern. If it was, the lantern was as large as a one-story, 1800-square-foot house and the neighbors' shadows were somehow being projected as exceptionally tall, except for the one smaller one. And, when I truly looked, there were no neighbors outside any house but mine that night; but, for some reason, that explanation made the most sense to me at the time. Before I came into the house, as I watched this orb first lift above tree level while moving northeast, then straighten its path to move directly west-to-east, a family member came outside. I told him the neighbors were setting off Chinese lanterns. "That's not a Chinese lantern," he replied. "And what neighbors?" I have started to occasionally see these red orbs nearby again, starting in February; they had been absent since that last prior sighting in October. And no, it was not a Chinese lantern; but, everything except the orb itself I'm going to say could have come from my imagination.

Held as-reported from National UFO Reporting Center (record NUFORC #139100). Witness text is preserved verbatim, including its spelling; nothing is edited beyond formatting.