Sphere over Riverside, CA

The report, as filed

While in my backyard on the night of 10/07/2020 at approx. 21:30, while looking to the sky for meteors from The Orionids event, I witnessed an abnormal craft pass overhead. The sky was dark overhead with normal city light pollution toward the horizon. I had identified Saturn and Jupiter at approximately 192 degrees S of my position, then Mars at approximately 81 degrees E. I took out my phone and opened my “Star Walk 2” application to help identify any constellations I might be able to see. As I looked away from my phone and into the night sky while facing approximately 40 degrees NE, a fast moving, dull gray in color, orb appeared from approximately 109 degrees E and traveled toward 316 degrees NW. Estimating by relation to the commercial aircraft in the area at that time, the object appeared to be at approximately 20-25,000 feet in altitude. The orb shaped object appeared to be approximately one quarter the size of a commercial airliner (50 feet +/-) in diameter. The object had no flashing lights (of any color) and seemed to “glow” rather than “shine”. It traveled nearly the length of my visible sky in a straight line in approximately 4 seconds. At that 4th second, it made a 90 degree right angle maneuver traveled a split second, then made another 90 degree angle maneuver to the left (which put it back traveling in it’s original direction), before disappearing out of my sight another second later. There is high altitude commercial air traffic in my area, traveling to and from two large airports. These commercial aircraft were traveling approximately, at least, 5 times slower than the object I witnessed. The majority of the flight paths for these airports are perpendicular to the path of the unidentified object I witnessed. The commercial aircraft are easily identifiable by their colored lights, airspeed and direction. I regularly see the Starlink satellites and they too travel in a path perpendicular to this unidentified object, and approximately 100 times slower from my perspective. I immediately checked the viewable time for the International Space Station from my global position and found that it had possibly been visible (dependent on viewing conditions) albeit on a different flight path and approximately an hour and forty minutes earlier. The unidentified object I witnessed by my estimation was traveling at at least 2,000 mph, with no marker light, no sound, and no sonic boom.

Held as-reported from National UFO Reporting Center (record NUFORC #159855). Witness text is preserved verbatim, including its spelling; nothing is edited beyond formatting.