posted on Sep, 26 2008 @ 01:57 AM
I've seen these orange spheres on 3 occassions here in Holland the last 20 months. Not far from Amsterdam. Twice around New Year and the last time a
few weeks ago. It could be that these are chinese ricepaper balloons. Here's a site that sells them;
www.ufo-balloons.com...
However I'm not totally convinced. The first time I saw one was just after 12 on New Year when the fireworks started. My nephew pointed it out to me
and he said he first saw 2 orange spheres but 1 disappeared. So we're looking at it and suddenly it comes over to our direction. It was hundreds of
meters away but reached us in 5-10 seconds and flew right over our heads at 30 meters (100 feet) in the sky. It was the size of a basketball, not
round but oval and the weirdest thing was eventhough it was somewhat fuzzy and you couldn't see sharp edges the center portion of the object was in
fact dark. My nephew and sister-in-law who were standing beside me saw the same thing.
The second time I saw one was exactly a year later but this time in the afternoon. My nephew wanted to set of some fireworks so we went out in the
(same) street and there was an orange light again in the sky. This time further up. The orange light slowly moved up in stages and this time I noticed
it had a tiny horizontal stripe on both the left and right side of the object. My nephew noticed that too. We watched it for a couple of minutes,
talked about it with other people in the street and then went inside again. Looked out the backwindow and it was still in the sky.
The third time, just a few weeks ago at my own house I saw one again. Late in the evening, after a football match I wanted to get ready for bed and
went outside in my garden to blow out a candle (don't want the smell in my livingroom). Saw an orange light quite some distance away just coming over
the rooftops of other houses. So I looked at it and thought it couldn't be an airplane. It wasn't moving slowly so I hurried back in the house to
get my binoculars. Got it in sight with the binoculars and it was just a blazing orange light. Didn't notice any edges but for a few seconds when it
was closer to my position I noticed an oval shaped eye around the light. This could have been the cone or cilinder of the balloon. A few moments later
the thing just went out. I was watching it through my binoculars and within a micro second it was "out". Maybe it passed behind a cloud, I don't
know but I suspect I would have seen some remaining light. This sighting lasted around a minute.
So, what are these things? In all honesty my second and third sighting could have been one of those balloons. However my first sighting was mighty
weird, there was also a windforce 8 at the time, not the best moment to lift up a balloon.