NUFORC Sighting 78732

Occurred: 2010-11-03 11:50 Local
Reported: 2010-11-04 10:30 Pacific
Duration: 4 MINUTES
No of observers: 1

Location: Inglewood, CA, USA

Shape: Rectangle

Tumbling metallic object in clear sky photographed near Los Angeles International Airport

REPORT OF OBJECT SEEN NEAR LAX

I first saw the object through a window in my house in Englewood, California moving from an Eastern direction in a straight line towards Los Angeles International Airport and at first I thought it was a cluster of thin metallic plastic party balloons which had either been released or had escaped. As I looked closer, they looked "funny" somehow. They appeared to be tumbling as a group and I realized they were moving fast, too fast. There was no breeze or wind on the ground. Later I realized they would have been traveling against the wind since they were headed directly for the Pacific ocean.

I grabbed my camera (a Canon T2i with a Tamron 300mm lens), ran outside and looked over the roof of my house where I estimated the object would have have reached by then, but I could not see it anywhere. I was shocked by this. I could not believe something so clearly visible could have simply disappeared in a cloudless clear blue sky. I carefully searched the entire sky area but had to conclude it was gone!! I then looked back to the East where I had first seen the object from inside my house--– closer to the horizon. There it was again, apparently in the same position and traveling at the same speed and slowly tumbling.

I got 2 clear pictures of the object as it crossed the sky in about 3 minutes. My first view had been at an angle of about a 45 degrees. I finally lost sight of it when it became too small a point to see in the West. Looking at a map later I saw that it would have traveled slightly to the north of Los Angeles International Airport and then continued out over the ocean.

Using Photoshop I zoomed the images of the object out to 300% and then cut and pasted them into one image next to each other for comparison. You can see that the object is rotating. One picture shows the appearance in the sky and the other is a closeup. You can notice the interesting colors on the surface.

NUFORC Note:

The objects look to us to be mylar, helium-filled, balloons. We have encouraged the source of the report to check with the local FAA Flight Service Stateion, to see what direction the wind was moving, at the time the photos were taken. PD

Posted 2010-11-21