Sphere over Marathon, FL
A witness account on file, unevaluated. Most of the archive rests here, and honestly so.
The report, as filed
We were out photographing the sunset, and came across a strange spherical craft in the background of the photos. I have a series of photos that show the object, and just had time to edit them. I'd be happy to submit them.
Held as-reported from National UFO Reporting Center (record NUFORC #164334). Witness text is preserved verbatim, including its spelling; nothing is edited beyond formatting.
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Routed to: Federal Aviation Administration · records window 2021-03-08 → 2021-03-25
From the same sky
Related entries
May 10, 2023 · 8:00 AM · CYLINDER
Marathon, FL
White “dash” approx 100-200’ above ocean. Turned boat towards object. Son saw it. Then in the blink of an eye it went straight down. The speed at which it dropped down out of sight was real fast… way faster than any aircraft.
September 21, 2022 · 10:19 PM · TRIANGLE
Marathon, FL
Sitting on my boat at 1020pm watching the distant lightning storm in the gulf. I saw something move between the darkness over my boat and the light from the storm. Had to scratch my eyes and look hard but was able to follow it for 9 seconds before it was to far to see anymore. There weren't any lights and the craft is approximately 80ft in width. The v shape seemed to have multiple sections to it approximately 3 sections on each side of the v. No sound was coming from it as it was only 1000 ft off the water.
July 20, 2020 · 10:00 PM · LIGHT
Marathon, FL
Myself, my girlfriend and my immediate family we're on vacation and Marathon Florida. A small hotel/condo type resort on the Gulf side of the island. Directly outside of our room which was on the bottom story, was a doc, a short one. On the first night myself my mother and my girlfriend we're lying out on the dock looking at the stars as we often do especially outside of cities where they are very visible. And there's no remarkable background to any of this short of my brother is an ex army infantry. First sighting The three of us, myself, girlfriend and mother, we're lying on the dock stargazing. 15 to 20 minutes of this and my girlfriend for spots it and points out two dim lights, dimmer than most of the stars but not all of them, heading east towards the Atlantic from the Gulf. The lights are mostly overhead and pass overhead during the siding. The two lights are moving in tandem as if attached to each other but as it passes overhead they move apart and then closely together while maintaining a constant speed that appears faster than any plane or helicopter. There is no noise whatsoever. When the lights move away from each other they do so in a way that is mirroring one another. The motion of the lights moving closer together and farther apart was much faster than the forward motion of the objects. We could tell they were two separate objects because we could see the stars between them as they passed over us. There appeared to be nothing more than the two lights. This was my first siding of something I couldn't identify or explain. This was due to the mostly unremarkable speed of the lights but the movements of them were so rapid and perfectly mirrored I could not come up with an explanation for any known aircraft. I was very excited about this and told everyone with us in our party, my oldest nephew one of two, that was with us seemed very uninterested as he did with most things at his age kept insisting it was a drone or drones. This I did not believe a prop driven vehicle even a drone could move so agiley as well as silently, also knowing that drones require flashing lights on them. The next night I go out on the dock to do some fishing. And it is no longer than 15 or 20 minutes that I again see the slight. I believe it came out from the Gulf again but then seem to turn in what appeared to be a perfect right angle then slowed to a stop for just a moment and then jumping around very erratically sort of circling its stationary point and then appeared to shoot upwards I could see a slight curve to it as it faded away out of velocity I've never witnessed. It basically seemed to go straight up extremely fast after jumping around radically. As I recall, every night myself or others went out for 15 or 20 minutes one of these lights would always appeare. With the exception of one siding I believe they were always moving from golf to Atlantic, just not always in a straight line. The two most remarkable sightings where as follows. The first I want to mention is a night we got back late, probably after 10:00. Myself and my youngest nephew of the age 13 went out with me to the pool. Because it was so hot we did not mind going out in the rain. There was complete cloud cover and heavy rain. While we are in the pool he tells me to look up and we see again the same light, not real dim but not very bright, also silent, moving in a slightly curved trajectory and then making sharp right angles in a zigzag of about five points then jumps around around its original center point before appearing to shoot up through the clouds. At this point I have been talking about them enough to annoy my family. Especially my older nephew who insists that it's nothing but a drone. So one night I convinced my two young nephews and my brother, as well as his two kids all go out to the dock and as I told them to give it 20 to 30 minutes and we'll see one. The lights did not disappoint. My older nephew was, ironically, the one to spot the light first. He suddenly said what is that a bird? And we all looked up and saw it as usual moving silently, other than that I cannot recall specifically how this one moved. But the satisfying part being that the older more skeptical nephew had no idea to explain what it was. Unfortunately my brother, the ex-military member, has terrible vision and thick classes and could not see the light in time, although his children did, he also had a camera because he likes taking pictures, but it was gone too fast and nothing was captured on film. I believe I had tried to film The light! s with a cell phone but was unable to get it to show up, probably because of the dimness. The last siting I was out on the dock alone because it was late and I could not convince my girlfriend or anyone else to come out with me to see the lights. I expected to see them even though it was raining a bit and mostly cloud covered. This time was different because while sitting on the dock I saw the cloud cover edge out over the Gulf, and what seemed to be a gap in the clouds directly above me, slightly behind me from my point of view. Through this there were two stars I could see but did not pay much attention. Expecting it to come from the Gulf of his mostly looking out that way, not sure if it's significant but the whole time I started feeling very uneasy, possibly watched, I kept having this picture of something rising out of the ocean or some large almond-eyed entity suddenly appearing on the doc next to me. This never happened though. After 30 minutes knowing I needed to get to bed I was rather disappointed and started walking up the dock back to our room! . I took one more last look up and suddenly realized those two stars were not an opening in the cloud which did not occur to me until one of those stationary lights jumped around the other and then shot off towards the Atlantic and the second one almost mimicked the exact motions of the first and appeared to shoot upwards on a curved trajectory. After the last siding it occurred to me these objects seem to move in erratic ways when we noticed them. And I can't help but remembering them and thinking they seem to shoot away or move erratically shortly after we started watching them. Maybe that's just me but to this day I can't find anything online about other people seeing this. I even asked a guy that worked at the resort what are those lights every night in the sky? He had no idea what kind of left and said we are near the Bermuda triangle which had not occurred to me at that point, I'm rather skeptical of the whole Bermuda Bermuda triangle legend. To this day I regret not making more of an effort to capture these things on film. The more I think about it the more I think it was not a terrestrial aircraft. If anybody has any ideas please let me know, there was a military base fairly nearby, but I don't imagine they had any drones with those capabilities. I hope to go back someday, and hope that I witnessed these lights again prepared with equipment to film them.
June 17, 2019 · 9:14 PM · FIREBALL
Marathon, FL
Upon examination with 10X binoculars it had a weave pattern encircling the object. It seemed to pulse and held the same altitude until it suddenly disappeared.
July 6, 2016 · 11:00 PM · RECTANGLE
Marathon, FL
On the night of either July 6th or 7th, 2016 about 11:00pm-11:30, in Marathon Key, Fl. my husband and I were sitting in front of the Atlantic Ocean, both looking up at the stars in the sky. There were a few clouds around and a fair amount of stars, which was all we saw. We had been there approx. 10 or 15 min. looking into the sky. My husband was sitting to my left and looking to his left, and I glanced to my right. I saw 5 transparent rectangular shapes that were lit up, in a V or horseshoe formation, in the sky, above the horizon. They were not moving, they were very large and defined, all exactly alike, covering a good amount of sky, and they were not solid; I could see right through them to the sky behind them. I distinctly recall seeing a wispy cloud floating by in one of the rectangles. I didn’t see where the source of this huge pattern of light could be coming from, and in an instant they moved very rapidly, all together, upward in the sky, in a q! uick vertical motion and the “light” went out. I did not hear any sound. The sky was then exactly as it had been: dark, with stars. This all happened in probably 2 seconds; I was just about to say to my husband, “Do you see this?” but didn’t have time! I’ve never seen anything like this in my 53 years and I’m not one for flights of fancy. The only thing I can think of to compare it to (in a way), was some years ago when I was on a stargazing trip out on a boat and the tour guide had one of those laser pointers, which he would very briefly, point into the sky--- I remember how far the light seemed to travel and the way it lit up the sky in the area he pointed to….this rectangular light reminded me of that. But I’m not familiar with lasers and if they would be capable of doing the above as I described, with this huge shape and pattern. So I decided to search online and report what I saw here. Witness indicates that the date of the sighting is approximate. PD
May 21, 2015 · 12:38 AM · LIGHT
Marathon, FL
Was just out walking my dog and looking up at the stars. I observed two lights that were in line with each other as if one was chasing the other. They moved at the speed that I usually see in rockets from the cape. I observed both objects for approx. 2 minutes until they got dimmer and I could no longer observe them. They looked similar to satellites but it's too late in the night to observe. Not to mention it was two in tandem. I am a current law enforcement officer with many years on night shift, so I am very familiar with flight paths of incoming and outgoing flights over my airspace.