Sphere over Pearsonville, CA

The report, as filed

On the night of October 15th, 2020, my dad and I witnessed a UAP near Kennedy Meadows Campground in Pearsonville, California. We were car camping and had setup for a brief overnight stay in Kennedy Meadows Campground. The campground was empty except for us and one other camper that went to bed early. At approximately 10:00pm, I was looking north-east towards the nearest mountain (approximately 0.3-0.8 miles away) when I saw a solid ball of white light rise seemingly through (or behind) the trees on top of the ridge. I called my dad over to watch it with me. Initially, I suspected it was a hiker flying some kind of drone, or maybe some sort of governmental drone doing nighttime surveying. However, we proceeded to watch the object maneuver over the ridge for approximately 2.5 hours. I do not know of any drones capable of hovering and maneuvering for at least 2.5 hours. For the duration we observed, the object appeared as a steady white light, never once blinki! ng or changing color. It would hover, then move in what looked like semi-random directions, only to hover once more. At one point while observing, the object continued to rise up in altitude at least 500-1000 feet over the ridge, then it slowly descended to 100+ feet over the ridge. Around 12:30am, we were so tired we decided to stop watching, especially since we'd run out of ideas for things it could be. Thoroughly fascinated and simultaneously unsettled, we went to bed. I am unsure at what point the object left. No matter the case, there was no trace of it over the ridge in the morning. Due to the remoteness of the area we were camping paired with the lateness of the hour, proximity to our campsite (we would have heard a plane or helicopter), flight duration, and flight capabilities, I have been unable to draw any conclusions as to what the UAP might have been. I considered a balloon with a light, but it's ability to hover consistently and move in random directions did not remind me of how I have ever seen a balloon move in the sky. To this day, I have no idea what the object could have been, but I wanted to officially report it. Some background on myself: I'm a Database Administrator with a degree in Computer Science.

Held as-reported from National UFO Reporting Center (record NUFORC #163168). Witness text is preserved verbatim, including its spelling; nothing is edited beyond formatting.