2014-05-24 - Crescent Mills, CA - Sphere

I saw a very large balloon through my telescope, was it Google's?

UFO = Balloon


((NUFORC Note: We spoke via telephone with the witness, and he sounded to us to be quite eloquent, and serious-minded. We suspect he is a very good witness. We still do not know what the object was, despite the multiple witness reports from people who observed it. It does not make sense to us that a high-altitude balloon would stay in one part of the sky for many hours. The winds aloft are usually constant, and would have caused a balloon to drift with the wind. PD))


On Saturday May 24, 2014, between 1600 and 1800 hrs. I saw a UFO. I was in the driveway in front of my house in Plumas County, California. I noticed a hang-glider overhead with a large whitish wing. It was refracting the sunlight and almost glowed. I got my little 10 x 21 binoculars for a closer look. Perhaps it was a new type of fabric, polyethylene? It looked cool.

Then I noticed a small white dot in the sky off to the North, at a bearing of about 10 degrees and an elevation of about 40 degrees. Was it another hang-glider way off in the distance? No, this thing was above the commercial jets that frequently fly over here. So it must be a Balloon! It looked spherical in the binoculars, maybe a little doughnut shaped. It must be at least 50,000 ft. altitude and slowly moving West.

I called my brother who lives ¼ mile N of me so he could confirm the sighting. He got his binoculars and saw the same thing. He suggested I get out my old 4.5 inch reflector telescope with a 28mm eyepiece. It needs the mirror recoated, so it doesn’t get out much, but despite the dust it worked pretty well.

Oh My God! I wish I had a picture of what I saw. It was a balloon alright, a very large, maybe 500 ft. diameter balloon with lots of pleats and a payload. Was it Google? I called Chico Municipal Airport (50 miles SW of here) to see if Google was in town. He did not know of any balloons in the area, but did go out to take a look, without success. Google had used Chico for test flights of balloons for the Loon project. Loon balloons are about 50 ft. diameter. T his was no Loon this was a Condor! The balloon was pumpkin shaped with lots of gores and load tapes, perhaps 80 or 100? It looks like a super [pressure type, probably flying at around 100,000 ft. Brilliant white where it got direct sun, and some greyish areas, shadows. The payload was dark (photovoltaic panels), suspended by lots of load tapes, and quite small compared to the massive envelope. The underside of the balloon looked different, greyer and wavy, perhaps the gathered fabric of the payload recovery parachute. The gores were quite curved on the top, billowed out, maybe semi-circular. It also appeared to be rotating counter clockwise, but I am not sure about that.

At about 1800 hours, it went behind the large pine/fir trees to the NW at a bearing of 279 deg. and an elevation of 38 deg. I cannot take pictures through the telescope properly, but I do have a photo of the small white dot and an attempt to use macro focus through the eyepiece. There may be an opportunity to scale the object using digital technology. I am 60 and not too computer savvy but I will try to email the photos to you. I have looked at hundreds of balloon photos on line but I have not seen anything quite like what I saw.

I called your UFO Hotline on the 24th and left a message. Then I called Google and talked to a man riding his bike in Florida he claimed the big balloon was theirs and as far as he knew I was the only one who has seen it, interesting. He then said let’s call the UFO Reporting Center and we did. He left a message, that I am on also, stating that we need an investigator to come out to interview me. Wow I didn’t expect that, so they want people to know about this thing? We talked for over an hour, like the game 20 questions. Some of what he said I do not necessarily believe; like the “Mother Ship” may be 2 miles in diameter, that it uses solar powered thrusters, that it comes down to pick up water to ionize, that it works with HARP, that they are looking for coltan (among other things) which occurs in my area, do I want to sell my property? I had given him my address. Really? So we know it was a balloon, but is it really Googles? How big is it? What are its capabilities? I look forward to figuring this out and very much appreciate having your organization to work with.