Was sitting with a friend at a spot overlooking the town (facing east) when he pointed out that there was an object hovering to the north. looked to be a black orb that was quite a distance away and of a notable size. it hovered mostly still for a couple of minutes, and then began to ascend, reaching an elevation of around 40â°. it then began to move east, stopped, began to move back west, and then descended to what looked like treetop level, although it was difficult to see due to houses/trees obscuring our view. unsure if it actually landed or not. it then ascended again, hovered, and moved west and out of sight. during this time, we explored the possibility that it was a balloon, either a hot air balloon or a large helium balloon that had been let off. the later seems impossible given it's seemingly controlled and varied flight path and decent/ascent, and the nearest hot air balloon ride organisation is based a considerable distance away. i speculated at first that it could have been a helicopter heading towards us, and checked the site flightradar24, which showed only a passenger jet to the east, which we could see. i posted to my instagram story asking if anyone else could see anything in the sky to the north, and i had a reply within a few minutes from a woman who said she was watching the object from her window. she was describing the motions of the object as we were seeing them, so i can with certainty that we were observing the same object. the object appeared to change shape at various points, going from circular to longer/taller, like a tic tac standing on its end.
