Sphere over Blue Springs, NE

The report, as filed

A fleet of mysterious UAS had been appearing nightly for weeks all over Nebraska. On the night of 1/15/20, I read 2 online reports of multiple low-flying drones in the area of Panama, NE and Blue Springs, NE. I drove out to see for myself, but when I arrived at these 2 locations, I saw only navigation lights of aircraft so high up that I assume they were airliners. After midnight, I had parked my car 5 miles east of Blue Springs, NE, and observed the sky from 0:15 to 1:30 am. At 0:45, my attention was focused on a bright yellow star (Arcturus), when my peripheral vision alerted me to motion on my left side. I immediately looked left and saw a fairly bright dot of white light above the top of a hill just ahead of me. It dropped behind the hill so quickly that it was visible for less than a second. I waited for 10 minutes to see if it would reappear. When it didn’t, I drove up to the top of the hill, but saw only outdoor lights of 2 nearby farms. The ‘dropping orb’ appeared as a perfectly round dot, unlike any meteor fireball I’ve ever seen. I continued to watch the sky until 1:30 am, but saw nothing else. It was exceedingly cold that night (windchill -10 F) so its unlikely that anyone else was outside at the time. I’m a 63-y.o. PhD virologist, and have previously filed a NUFORC report in August 2007.

Held as-reported from National UFO Reporting Center (record NUFORC #152709). Witness text is preserved verbatim, including its spelling; nothing is edited beyond formatting.