NUFORC Sighting 175632

Occurred: 2023-05-04 20:12 Local
Reported: 2023-05-04 21:34 Pacific
Duration: ~45min
No of observers: 4

Location: Panama, NE, USA
Location details: My house.

Shape: Other
Characteristics: Lights on object

Bright stationary object prior to dusk that was a hollow ring through telescope.

Astronomy is a hobby of mine. At 8:12pm my wife texted and said my son wanted to know what planet was northeast. I knew there shouldn’t be one at that time so I came out and saw a light that was comparable to the size and luminosity of Venus, but nowhere near the location of Venus and much too early to be seeing any other astronomical body. I opened my astronomy app and nothing should have been there. I laid down with it right on the corner of a building for 30-60 sec and I did not see movement. I got out my telescope and saw that it was a very bright ring with 10-12 impossibly bright lights around the outside. It appeared to be hollow. I called my brother in Lincoln and he could see it from where he was as well but in a much different direction. We shot some azimuths and using trig we estimated it was roughly above Palmyra and about 11.5 miles up. I started to notice that it was in fact moving imperceptibly slowly south and maybe slightly west. I followed it for at least 30 min. As the sun went down the stars got brighter and it slowly faded. As it got darker I could see a distinct blinking light in the center that pulses at roughly 1bps, but all of the other individual lights I had seen had disappeared. I wish I had some better pictures but none of my astrophography stuff was charged or accessible. These are both from my iPhone 14. One is at peak brightness prior to using my telescope, and the other was towards the end through my eyepiece as it was getting dark and fading. It looks like a star out of focus in a telescope, but I assure you it was focused. The ghosting was due to a long exposure in low light. Despite the appearance of a ring with lights around the outer bottom, we believe that the way it just drifted and definitely had a blinking light and based on its rough altitude that it was probably a spy balloon or something.

Posted 2023-05-19