UAP Record

Craft

Orb / sphere

Also: metallic sphere; silver sphere; ball of light; orbs; foo fighter

Report history: well-supported 1944–2023

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Middle East object — MQ-9 recording
Sensor recording · official releaseExplore the visual record ↗

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The visual record

Illustrations, recordings and archival references — each with its own provenance. A documented source is a starting point for investigation, not a verdict on its explanation.

Sensor recording · official release

Middle East object — MQ-9 recording

The MQ-9 clip AARO director Sean Kirkpatrick showed the Senate Armed Services Committee on 19 April 2023: a silver, orb-like object crossing the sensor field. An official sensor recording of the reported object; AARO assesses no anomalous behaviour in this clip and the object remains unidentified.

US military / DVIDS · released April 2023 ↗Public domain — US government work; DVIDS usage terms applyLicence terms ↗Resized and WebP-converted for display; content unchanged.
AI illustration

An interpretation of the reports

AI interpretation of the metallic or glowing sphere, the most frequent shape in the corpus, as described from Mario Woods's 1977 Ellsworth account to recent Navy reports. Not a photograph, not evidence.

UAP Record · ImageGen ↗Original illustration
Interview · source video

Mario Woods · 0:19:26

Open the source at the cited time. The episode thumbnail is video packaging, not a photograph of the reported subject.

American Alchemy / Jesse Michels ↗YouTube-hosted preview and player; not relicensed
Interview · source video

Allagash witnesses (Jim Weiner / Charlie Foltz) · 0:44:05

Open the source at the cited time. The episode thumbnail is video packaging, not a photograph of the reported subject.

American Alchemy / Jesse Michels ↗YouTube-hosted preview and player; not relicensed
Interview · source video

Brandon Fugal · 0:05:59

Open the source at the cited time. The episode thumbnail is video packaging, not a photograph of the reported subject.

American Alchemy / Jesse Michels ↗YouTube-hosted preview and player; not relicensed

The most frequent shape in the corpus: a metallic or glowing ball, seen singly or in formation, hovering or pacing aircraft. Mario Woods describes a sphere “the size of a Walmart building” over an Ellsworth silo in 1977; the Allagash witnesses estimate theirs at 80 feet; Ryan Graves, Brandon Fugal and Ross Coulthart add Navy, Skinwalker and Australian reports.

Reported characteristics

Every value is a report, not a specification.

shapeA complete sphere; some accounts describe it flattening or changing shape as it moves.
sizeFrom basketball-sized metallic balls to 80 ft (Allagash) and “the size of a Walmart building” (Woods).
lightsMetallic silver by day; glowing white, golden, pulsing or “blacker than black” at night; a boiling energy layer in Woods’ account.
soundSilent in every corpus account.
motionHovering over silos and lakes, pacing aircraft, formation flight, sudden departure; Skinwalker orbs said to pass through rock.
eraWWII foo fighters onward; corpus witnesses span 1976 to the 2020s.

Explanations offered

  • Balloons, drones, or out-of-focus aircraft and celestial lights

    INFERENCE well-supported

  • Plasma or ball-lightning phenomena

    SPECULATION contested

  • Controlled craft or probes of unknown origin

    SPECULATION contested

Mentioned in the corpus

Passages this record cites, with the stamp of the block each quote sits in.

Named in 16 uploads (automatic name matching, 29 mentions)

On the map

Ellsworth AFB, Skinwalker Ranch, Allagash abduction report (August 1976), Roosevelt carrier group encounters (2014–2015), Foo fighter reports (WWII aircrews), Washington, D.C. flap (July 1952)… Open the full map filtered to this record.

Sources on this record

  • 0:19:26 Nuclear Guard Speaks Out About UFO Abduction · Mario Woods
    it was huge and it was a sphere it had an energy source that that moved around it like like you'd see pictures of the Sun how it's just like boiling I don't want to call it plasma but I don't know what what really to call it but there were no tail sections
  • 0:19:56 Nuclear Guard Speaks Out About UFO Abduction · Mario Woods
    no wings tail SE nothing that we would associate anything in the air with it was a complete sphere but on a magnitude that is just hard to even comprehend
  • 0:44:05 “An 80 Foot UFO Abducted Us On a Lake!” -Jim Weiner & Charlie Foltz | MEMBERS… · Allagash witnesses (Jim Weiner / Charlie Foltz)
    It was still spherical. It was still spherical. It was still spherical. It was still And it was still like maybe two and a half story a house Give us a sense of the diameter. Yeah. Triple decker stuck 80 feet in diameter.
  • 0:37:45 “An 80 Foot UFO Abducted Us On a Lake!” -Jim Weiner & Charlie Foltz | MEMBERS… · Allagash witnesses (Jim Weiner / Charlie Foltz)
    cone of light, blue light, like a neon blue, but it looked like a a giant glass straw. You know, it looked like it was open, a void in the center of it or something. And this light starts from the bottom of the sphere coming out across the lake toward the canoe. And that was when I realized the sphere was coming with it
  • 0:05:59 Skinwalker Ranch Owner Reveals “Time Portal” On the Property · Brandon Fugal
    You see orbs and spheres often around the mesa, sometimes going through the mea, going through rock
  • 0:00:01 "I Located A UFO Base In Arizona!" -Ross Coulthart · Ross Coulthart
    up comes this beautiful golden orb, gigantic. It pulses. It's plasmatic.
  • 1:12:17 Congressman Reveals The Alien Brief That Changed The President’s Life
    this thing was blacker than black sphere that was floating and it just gave this sense of just complete eat evil and darkness is the way he described it.
  • 0:23:28 US Fighter Pilots Witness UFO (ft. Ryan Graves) · Ryan Graves
    about half the room raised their hand like oh yeah the cubes and fears you know we saw those.
  • 1:35:32 UFO Skeptic Mick West Challenged To A Debate · Jesse Michels
    these metallic spheres, silver spheres, metallic spheres flying in formation, V-shaped formations.

Built from graph nodes N-SPECIES-0105, N-SPECIES-0106.