At approximately 2:30pm est today my wife and i returned home from running some errands. while unloading groceries from the back of our vehicle, i noticed a plane flying from north to south. above it was an oval shaped object that appeared stationary. the top appeared to be either glowing or reflecting the sunlight. the bottom half appeared darker in color and my impression was its own shadow as the sun was higher up and further to the south. i then pointed it out to my wife and she observed the object as well. it was difficult to see the object with the naked eye but it was observable.
my wife then yelled at me to go inside the house to grab some binoculars which i did. using the binoculars i was able to locate the object and it appeared to be stationary in the air. my wife and i took turns exchanging the binoculars to better see it. we also tried capturing it with my samsung note 10 cell phone but my camera was unable to pick up the object. we thought this was somewhat strange as at times we could the observe the object with our eyes, mostly with the binoculars; however, my phone was completely unable to pick it up. we took 3 videos and i used the best zoom possible but we still could not pick it up.
by this time at least 10 minutes had elapsed and the object was still stationary. at this point i made a phone call to a mufon investigator who is also the assistant state director in another state. we spoke on the phone for 18 minutes and 43 seconds during which time the object was still observable and stationary. i was hoping the mufon investigator might be able to tell me something to allow me to record the object on my cell phone but that proved un-successful. the investigator also spoke with my wife during our live sighting.
eventually we hung up and continued our observation of the object. it was still stationary but it appeared to have moved laterally to the north. not gaining any height but moving from south to north but very very slowly. i sent a final text to the mufon investigator advising we still had the object in sight.
a short time thereafter, we lost sight of the object. we could no longer visually see it with our eyes or through the binoculars. my wife went in the house because it was extremely hot and humid. i remained outside for another 10 minutes desperately trying to locate the object but i could not. i am estimating our observation lasted a total of 40 minutes based on video log information, phone call to the mufon investigator and final text message.
once inside the house, i uploaded the videos to my pc and used the free mufon investigator tools to attempt to locate the object. unfortunately, that did not work. i then placed a call to nas jacksonville which is approximately 22 miles northwest of us. i spoke with a female and male base personnel. i asked if any weather balloons were launched today. the female told me, "we have no info about it" and then i was placed on hold and transferred to the male. this person told me "i don't know what a weather balloon is." at this point i realized my attempt at getting any information from the base was futile so i thanked them for their time and hung up. jacksonville airport is 34 miles to the north and florida north east regional airport is approximately 15 miles to the south.
we still don't know if this was a weather balloon but we can definitely say it was not a plane or a helicopter. there were no wings, engines, exhaust, contrails or rotor blades on it. no sound either. i did check the national weather service and normally weather balloons are launched twice a day; 1 hour before 7am est and at 7pm est. weather balloons also travel 90,000 - 100,000 ft. in 1 hour and 40 minutes based on information from the national weather service. my wife is going to attempt to review our videos from her pc and laptop in the hopes she can capture it.
based on the above, we decided to file this report. we are not saying it was extraterrestrial but it is extremely unusual from conventional aircraft we have seen. thank you for your time spent reviewing this report.
