2016-10-13 - Spearhead Point Campground, WI - Sphere

Moving white spheres seen by two people, while camping in northern Wisconsin.

On October 13, 2016, my friend and I were camping at the Spearhead Point Campground in Chequamegon-Nicolet National Forest in WI, we were camping at the P4 camp site. This was our fourth night at the campground, and the first night since we had been there that the sky was clear. It was about 7:00 pm, and we had just finished eating supper.

I had been looking at the sky, because I enjoy looking at the stars when there is little light pollution. I had noticed a bright, white sphere in the eastern sky, and I had been trying to figure out what it was. It was too big for a star, and I thought that it might be a planet. I periodically glanced at the object trying to figure out what planet it could be.

My friend and I were talking about the events of the week, and I was sitting at the picnic table looking at the object, when all of the sudden it started to move, slowly at first, then faster. I told my friend what I was seeing (my friend is blind). It was moving south-southeast, and had become obscured by some evergreen trees. I ran from the picnic table, down the steps to the dock at the campground, because I thought that would give me a better view as the object moved SSE. When I got to the dock, the object was gone. I walked back up the stairs to the picnic table where my friend was still standing. I told her that the object was gone by the time I got down to the dock. I was describing the sphere to my friend, when I looked to the east again, the sphere was back.

I told my friend that the sphere was back, and was describing it to her. While I was describing the sphere, and scrambling to find a camera or our video recorder, the sphere split forming two spheres. When it split, it appeared as though the new sphere dripped off the original sphere. These spheres were originally aligned vertically, and then the lower sphere moved upward to be aligned horizontally. Once the spheres were aligned horizontally, one of the spheres split again. There were now there spheres aligned horizontally. Each time there was a split, the spheres became smaller, and they were all bright white. The two sphere on either side, just seemed to turn off, leaving the sphere in the middle. That sphere began to change colors, cycling through white to red to red-orange. This continued for about a minute, and then that sphere just turned off.

The original sphere was slightly bigger than a BB held at arm’s length, and it was oriented approximately 45 degrees above the horizon. Since I’m not familiar with the area, I don’t have an estimate of how far away the object might have been from the campground. The object(s) did not make any noise, and I didn’t see anything like an exhaust trail. The overall sighting lasted around 40-50 minutes. About 20 minutes after all of the objects had disappeared, a plane flew over our campground. It was easy to hear the plane’s engine, you could see the outline of the plane in the sky, as well as see the aviation lights blinking on and off.

Unfortunately, we did not get a photo of the object(s). My camera had fallen out of my backpack on to the ground under the picnic table, and I didn’t see it there until the next morning. We did get the video camera out, but were unable to record the object(s) due to a camera malfunction (?).

Both my friend and I are in our early 50s, and have postgraduate degrees. I work in law enforcement, and my friend is not currently employed. We grew up together in Northeast Iowa. My friend still lives in Iowa, and I live in Tennessee.