NUFORC Sighting 172792

Occurred: 2022-11-04 09:45 Local - Approximate
Reported: 2022-11-05 17:19 Pacific
Duration: About 10 minutes
No of observers: 2

Location: Fremont, CA, USA
Location details: 41200 Blacow Road, in the parking lot of a plaza

Shape: Sphere
Characteristics: Emitted other objects, Aircraft nearby

Witnessed large, spherical object, flat on bottom, travel from East to West, then North. Object may have split up (up to 10 objects?).

Friday morning I arrived early to work, parked in the lot next to a coworker (also in her car), killed time in my car. After ten or fifteen minutes, she left her car for work and I followed.
Upon locking my doors I felt the urge to look up. Standing to the passenger side behind the car, I saw an object in the sky. My coworker, wondering what I was staring at, looked up and saw it too. She didn't know what it was either.

Coming from the East, around 9:45 AM in Fremont, CA, was a dark grey, almost spherical object, sort of flat on the bottom. Like a basketball that needs some air.
I don't know how far away it was, or how high - I don't know how big it was... Having never seen it before I don't know what to compare it too, or it's scale. But it seemed very big and fairly close (within 5 miles?), and maybe somewhere around the same height most helicopters fly at. Definitely lower than the propeller plane that came by around the same time, also East to West (Cessna type plane).
The object was very big. Had to be bigger than a Blackhawk helicopter or maybe even a Chinook. It wasn't a blimp or hot air balloon, I'm familiar with watching both. I know hot air balloons can come in different shapes, but this wasn't a balloon.

It occasionally caught sun and shined or glinted around its edges. It moved too slow for an airplane, in my opinion, but steady paced. I did see a prop plane in the air also, for contrast, around the same time - they weren't close to each other. Two vastly different objects in the sky.

It moved silently (I'm aware of stealth helicopters and the possibility of silent or near-silent propellers), in one direction for about 5 minutes - from the time I first observed the object.

Then it changed directions - traveling from the East to the West, it just started going North. It didn't seem to turn, per se. No arcing turn, like a plane or helicopter. Because of this, at first it seemed to have stopped. I realized it changed directions because it started to get smaller, going away from my position.

It was then, once the object was far away, that I thought to take out my phone and capture some images. But I felt it was a futile thing as the object was so far away and my phone's camera not having great zoom capabilities, etc.
I took two photos without zoom, then two more with digital zoom maxed out. Those were blind shot, because I wasn't sure my camera could even see the object.

The first two photos have the plaza I work at in frame, the object is a black speck, the prop plane is in both shots. In the second shot there are a bunch of objects. Not sure if they are from the object, or birds, but six are in a rectangular formation. Including the original object, I count 9, maybe 10 objects in total - in this one shot.
The first of the last two shots seems to show the objects coming back together, or separating - not sure, its not clear what's going on. The last shot shows four similar sized and shaped objects. I think they were convex shaped disc-like vehicles that can stack on top of each other. Flat or concave underneath, and rounded on top. Maybe like stacked, upside-down bowls. So when stacked they appear as one unit?

I was bummed out that I didn't have the clarity or focus to take pictures immediately. I was so much in awe, scared, and shocked too see this that I ignored my instinct to snap a picture. This was shocking and disturbing and awesome, and it can derail your mind-train.

On my first break I looked at the photos and lost my mind.

I had a witness with me that saw the object at the same time as I, she went in to work about five minutes before I did, but she saw the object when it was closer to us.

I pointed it out to a passing postal carrier and asked if hot air balloons were common in the area.
There had to be more witnesses. It flew in an suburban area with a large high school, two hospitals, etc. It was bright daylight at the time, and the object wasn't obscured by clouds.

I'm open to all the possibilities. I don't know what I saw, but I know that I did see it and that it's not something I've ever seen before.

My mind was reaching for explanations.

Posted 2022-12-22