NUFORC Sighting 101441

Occurred: 1987-10-30 22:00 Local - Approximate
Reported: 2013-08-23 02:40 Pacific
Duration: 3 minutes
No of observers: 1

Location: Pleasant Hill, CA, USA

Shape: Orb
Characteristics: Landed

Close Encounter With Low-Flying Glowing Orange Orb

In late October of 1987 at approximately 10 pm I was walking alone to a market in a shopping center very near to my apartment in Pleasant Hill CA. This was a very quiet, tree-lined, residential neighborhood consisting of mainly condominiums and apartments. That evening I did not hear nor see anyone on the street. I was walking along the sidewalk when quite unexpectedly, I noticed a glowing orange rounded object floating in mid air at an altitude of approximately 8 feet over the sidewalk, approximately 25 feet in front of me. I don't remember seeing from what direction the object came, I just remember it appearing there. I continued to walk toward it as it slowly sailed horizontally in the air. It was floating very slowly, and I was able to walk up to it and observe it at a distance of 2-3 feet. The object at one point lost altitude and hovered at about at eye level. Now, it may have been floating in my direction from the moment I saw it, I don't recall ex! actly, I only remember that it floated just past the right side edge of the sidewalk over a patch of ice plant. The size of the object was about 12 inches in diameter; however, it was not perfectly spherical as the contour of the object appeared to fluctuate (slightly undulating) I find it strange that my memory remains a bit weak concerning what happened next, and I have no recollection of events for the rest of the evening, but I believe that the glowing ball eventually drifted to the ground across from my feet and shrank in size (a bit like a dying flame) until it disappeared upon a patch of ice plant.

At first, I thought that the glowing orb was a balloon with some kind of orange fire inside of it. I though that perhaps there were some kids nearby playing a trick on me. As the object came very close I realized that it wasn't a balloon. There seemed to be some kind of changing/moving luminescent source coming from within it. I could not explain what I was seeing AT ALL. There were no kids around, and no sounds.

I strongly remember thinking to myself that I had just witnessed something supernatural and that I should not tell anybody about it. In fact, I did not tell anybody about it for many, many years. I was eighteen years old at the time. Characterizing the experience as a supernatural event was the only way I could explain it, yet my gut sense told me it was some kind of natural/geological phenomenon, perhaps simply because it was so real. I was a part-time freshman in college at the time, and had not yet taken any physics or chemistry classes that would have improved my observation skills or at least increased my frame of reference. Looking back, I think that what I witnessed was a ball of plasma (ionized gas). I recently related the story of my experience to a professor of physics at my local community college. He was of the opinion that what I witnessed was a rare (and controversial) phenomenon known as ball lightening. A professor of chemistry at the same institution, a! fter hearing about my experience, theoretically rejected and argued against the very existence of ball lightening and offered no scientific explanation for the phenomenon I witnessed.




NUFORC Note:

Witness indicates that the date of the incident is approximate. PD


Posted 2013-08-30

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