NUFORC Sighting 79484

Occurred: 2011-01-01 00:05 Local
Reported: 2011-01-01 20:49 Pacific
Duration: 15 minutes
No of observers: 0

Location: Redlands, CA, USA

Shape: Sphere
Characteristics: Lights on object

Possible balloons with ignition sources launched over Mentone for New Year's celebration.

I live in Redlands, which is about 6 miles EESE of San Bernardino, CA.

At a little before midnight New Year’s Eve, 2010, I went out on my east-facing front porch to listen to the celebratory noise.

Approximately 00:05 am I observed two glowing objects rise from the NNE from my vantage point.

The objects were, to my eyes, about as bright, and were about the same angular size, as the planet Jupiter (when it is on the zenithal arc).

These objects seem to have risen from NE Mentone, the next town east of Redlands.

The atmospheric conditions caused them to slowly rise, in an apparent north-westerly direction.

The sky was overcast with some low stratus and cumulus clouds. I was able to track these objects for about 10 to 12 minutes before they entered obscurity in the clouds, or their inherent light source went out.

The two objects appeared to originate from the same ground location. Their apparent angular separation ranged from about ½ degree to 2 degrees.

My supposition is that they were large balloons carrying an ignition source well below the balloons themselves (to keep from burning the balloons).

The light they gave off was mostly white, with a slight reddish tinge. The time of their disappearance was approximately 00:20 am. From the time of first notice, to final disappearance, they traveled approximately 55 degrees azimuthally.

Thought I would write this in case anyone else saw the same thing.

About midway through November, in the late afternoon, I saw two similarly-sized objects, with about the same apparent luminosity. They, however (or at least at the time I noticed them), were separated by about 30 degrees, and had much different trajectories. It is quite possible that their point of origination was also in NE Mentone – perhaps these were test flights?

Posted 2011-01-05