2009-01-24 - Yavatmal (India) - Circle

Bright spherical light which could be seen clearly at noon

Coordinates: 20°23'8"N 78°5'0"E
24th January 2009 at
12:08 Indian Standard Time
City: Yavatmal, Maharashtra State, India

The above coordinates are marked in Wikimapia.org as "I was standing Here"

http://wikimapia.org/#lat=20.3855136&lon=78.0834496&z=18&l=0&m=a&v=2&show=/11303203/

I had been to Yavatmal on the 24th to meet my friend and as he had some work at his factory I accompanied him and I preferred waiting out watching the work going on in his factory premises. A little before mid-day I was standing at the marked place (on wikimapia.org) waiting for my friend who was in a meeting. I was looking at the clear blue sky with very faint clouds and I saw this extremely shiny object in the sky. It seemed stationary and was very bright. I was amazed at the brightness and concentrated on it trying to identify what it could be and then I realized that it was moving very slowly, as if it was drifting. I thought maybe it could be a weather balloon (It probably could be, I am not sure. It was just a few hours that I was in Yavatmal and I have absolutely no Idea if weather baloons are released there. I believe weather baloons are white in colour but this thing seemed to reflect like it would be a foil. This thing looked like a perfect shiny sphere although in the photograph it shows a different shape. I believe it could be because of 'camera shake'. The picture is taken from a Cannon PowerShot A560 zoomed to the maximum digital 16x. It does make it shaky and difficult to catch a object so far away on the LCD screen and click it with a steady hand.

A few seconds later it seemed to slightly pick up speed. I am sure the wind on the ground was in the opposite direction this thing was going westward. It kept on accelerating gradually and then it stopped, looking brighter than before (or maybe I imagined that it looked brighter). It was hard trying to focus the eyes on it. Two of the workers there too asked me what it could be. I said it could be a weather balloon but I wonder if they knew what a weather balloon is. I wished I was carrying my binoculars that time. At that time I took a break by looking down cause my neck was feeling the strain looking straight up. When I looked up again I could not see it. It could not be, cause it was only a couple of seconds . . . It just could not disappear. It had not disappeared but it was way away westward and was moving really fast almost at the speed of a plane flying high. And then at one point it stopped and it started shrinking in size rapidly and then it was gone. I would attribute to the shrinking in size to it going higher and away.

The accompanying photo was taken when it seemed to be steady. I could not bring it in frame (on the LCD) when it was moving faster. I realize now that I could have used the viewfinder instead of the LCD. This is the only shot that I ve taken.

Oh one more thing I would like to mention that earlier I had seen two vapour clouds (one stretching east-west and the other north south) that a fighter jet leaves. I did ask my friend that time whether there is a air base nearby. I do believe that 2 to 4 vapour trails are left by jets over Yavatmal skies each day.

I forgot to mention the above incident to my friend but at least two of his workers have seen this with me. Could be even more cause I was staring at the sky like crazy and I am sure many must have seen me staring and they too would have looked in the same direction.