NUFORC Sighting 67896

Occurred: 2008-12-27 16:49 Local
Reported: 2009-01-07 10:15 Pacific
Duration: 5 min approx
No of observers: 1

Location: Riverside, CA, USA

Shape: Formation
Characteristics: Aircraft nearby

Oval object with 5 or 6 smaller spheres

On 12/27/2008 about 1649 PST I was on my back porch looking at the sky. The sky was bright to the south due to the setting sun, with some high altitude clouds in the background. Visibility was very good. There was a slight breeze from the north, which was slightly bowing tall palm trees in the area. I became aware of a stationary black dot just above the skyline directly to the south of my location. I first took it to be a tethered advertising balloon, but soon realized it was too high in the sky, and would interfere with aircraft. After several minutes I went into the house and got a pair of binoculars to get a better look at the object. With the binoculars I could see the dot was actually oval shaped. There were five or six smaller circular objects spread out below the oval in a semi-circle. These objects were not visible to the naked eye. I watched for several minutes, periodically fiddling with the adjustments on the binoculars to get a better view. The large object seemed to remain stationary, while the smaller objects slowly moved about beneath, seemingly grouping up with each other in various configurations. All the objects were opaque black, backlight by the bright light of the setting sun. The oval looked like it might have had a reddish spot near the top, but it could have been due to the lighting. I watched for about five minutes until I received a phone call. I tried to locate the objects when I finished the call several minutes later, but they were gone. I cannot estimate how far away the objects were but feel they were fairly distant. There were general aviation and commercial aircraft in the area at the time of the sighting. I rule out balloons due to their not reacting to the wind and the regular spacing that the objects maintained in relation to each other. Balloon I have seen released into the sky quickly dissipate and follow random paths following the direction of the wind.

I am no computer whiz, but I have made two drawings which I will attempt to attach which illustrate my observations.

Posted 2009-01-10

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