NUFORC Sighting 157952

Occurred: 2020-07-26 19:45 Local
Reported: 2020-07-26 18:43 Pacific
Duration: 20-30 minutes
No of observers: 2

Location: Birmingham, AL, USA

Shape: Light

High flying slow moving object that seemed to be floating then was destroyed and disappeared

In southwest sky I noticed what appeared to be a bright star in the pre-dusk sky. I spotted it while I was looking at the moon. With the moon as a reference point, and the nearby treetops, I noticed that the object was actually slowly moving at high altitude generally in a Westerly direction but not in a perfectly straight path. Movement was smooth and slow. I assumed it was some type of weather balloon. The sun was glinting off of it but at that great of a distance I couldn’t tell a shape. There was no contrail. I kept checking on it every few minutes and I filmed it for a few uneventful minutes on my phone. Finally I grabbed my binoculars to try to get a better look. When I finally got focus on the object it it expelled a small smoke plume that looked like what I can best describe as what an eject seat looks like when it’s fired. Like a small rocket shot upward from it for what appeared to be a short distance. The object immediately dimmed and disappeared and I believe I saw a small dark speck fall rapidly back to earth in my binoculars but I can’t say for certain because it was so far away. I continued to watch but there was nothing. No chute, no more smoke, nothing. My best guess is a weather balloon with some kind of self-distruct mechanism where it blows its balloon top? Either that or a high flying balloon that somehow launched a small rocket into the upper atmosphere.

Posted 2020-07-31