Sphere over Near Chicago Area, IL

The report, as filed

Came home around 12:30am from a trip. Near 1am saw a very bright star shaped light hovering awkwardly below The cloud line looking north to slightly northwest from my house which would face toward Lake Michigan or Chicago area. I am very familiar with seeing planes in route to the airports, private aircraft, military planes and helicopters, low orbit satellites streaking in the sky and even have seen shooting stars and other things over time. This was definitely abnormal in how it was moving and how bright it was. My wife and I were looking at the object and I specifically noticed not only how bright it was, but how slowly and awkwardly it was dancing horizontally. It seemed to move a little, stop, then do it again a couple of times. It stopped, then seemed to make a half circle back in the opposite direction and slightly lift above a cloud. I could still see it momentarily and it was as if it lifted and disappeared. The cloud cover cleared relatively quick and there was no remnant of what we saw. It was pretty clear otherwise with many stars highly visible. We even saw what appeared to be a low orbit satellite running from west to east in the general area shortly after we saw the object.

Held as-reported from National UFO Reporting Center (record NUFORC #170815). Witness text is preserved verbatim, including its spelling; nothing is edited beyond formatting.