Sphere over Florence, TX

The report, as filed

I can best give the time as: past sunset, still a little orange at the horizon. Venus was in the orange part of sky near horizon. The moon was crescent and it was illuminating some high clouds that night. The UFO started as a glowing orb moving across the western sky from N-NW towards S-SE. I can't tell if the glow was caused by interaction with high clouds, but I initially thought it was a satellite reentry judging by the speed and apparent distance. There were no blinking lights or sound, and it was moving about same speed as a passing satellite. As the object passed (from my viewpoint) under the crescent moon, that's when a donut shaped cloud formed just ahead of the object and, surprisingly to me, the cloud seemed to progress ahead of the object faster than the object was moving. The cloud appeared to move in the same direction as the object as the cloud expanded, similar to someone blowing a smoke ring from a cigar. From my viewpoint, I was seeing the cloud almost edge-on, but off enough to see clearly that it was a ring-shaped cloud. My two best guesses for what I saw are: A - a satellite bouncing off the upper atmosphere, and some part of it triggered a transonic induced ring cloud. B - a craft launched a projectile that created the ring cloud as the projectile went transonic. I never heard any kind of sonic boom though, nor could I ever see any projectile (just the cloud formed ahead of the object that I could see). The ring cloud is what made me think this was weird enough to report. Also, last detail, after the ring cloud, the original object dimmed as it moved away and there was no longer any glow around it. SpaceX launch from Florida [NUFORC annotation: Rocket - Certain]

Held as-reported from National UFO Reporting Center (record NUFORC #177018). Witness text is preserved verbatim, including its spelling; nothing is edited beyond formatting.