2018-04-28 - Joliet, IL - Changing

Object with alternating apperance transverses sky.

I was near a window that faces north and noticed a white object moving through sky in a southwesterly direction. What initially caught my attention was the apparent oscillating or alternating shape the object had.

I stepped out to my balcony to view and it was definitely not a plane or balloon. It was, at this point, low enough to see the object alternating in appearance, yet had a slight distortion or haze surrounding it.

I quickly stepped inside to gather my phone/camera. The appearance was spherical with an elongating cone shaped distortion that projected from the underside. I am estimating it was roughly 1-2K feet in altitude but it’s only an estimate.

The object passed nearly directly over me and was gaining altitude as it progressed to the southwest. Its altitude stabilized when it was roughly 3-4X smaller in appearance compared to the initial time of observation. At this point the object seemed stationary relative to the ground, but may have gained additional altitude. Then it slowly moved east and it was visible for another 3-4 minutes. I took my eye off of it for a second and could not re-acquire.

The entire sighting lasted from 16:43 to 16:52 I took photos throughout the observation. The initial 4 photos that were taken in fairly quick succession (within a few seconds) reveals two cycles of the alternating shape. Subsequent photos appear to be too distant to resolve much detail; however I have not down loaded to a computer for better viewing.