Unidentified Flying "Square Metal Object" Filmed over Springfield, Missouri

A still image of the object recorded by Johnson. *(Justin Johnson / YouTube)*

Electrician Justin Johnson said he was on his way home, driving north on Glenstone Avenue in Springfield, Missouri, at about 5 p.m. on October 18th, when he spotted a "square metal object" spinning wildly in the air—seemingly only a few hundred feet off of the ground.

Johnson filmed the object for just over a minute, later posting the footage to his YouTube channel.

The object was “heading southwest from the northeast part of town,” Johnson said, and at first he thought it was a helicopter, although his opinion quickly changed as he continued to watch the object.

"As it got closer, I thought it was a balloon or trash blowing around," he said in a statement on YouTube. "As I got right up on it, I could clearly see it was a cube spinning or wobbling on an axis."

As he watched, the object appeared to stop moving and hover over Springfield's downtown, at which point Johnson was able to park his work vehicle in the turn lane and retrieve his phone to film it.

By the time he was able to start recording, he needed to use the phone’s 12x zoom to capture the object.

Johnson described the object as a "cube spinning or wobbling on an axis" that "looked like it had auras coming off the bottom and middle."

"I know it is reflecting sun[light], but it also seemed as though there was lights going around it at about center mass and lower," he said.

Due to being "tired from a long day" and the fact this encounter took place during rush hour traffic, Johnson said he didn't linger very long, but after he stopped recording, he was "able to watch if for about a minute longer," before it "flew northwest towards the Willard, Missouri area" and disappeared.

Assuming he wasn't the only one who had seen the object, Johnson called his parents since they live in the area.

"They said they didn't see anything, but that they heard a loud noise at the time I was seeing this," said Johnson.

So far, the leading skeptical explanation for Johnson’s sighting is that he witnessed a cubic mylar balloon caught in a draft.

Cubic mylar balloons, such as the one pictured, can be purchased at Party City for $6.00.

Not everyone believes the skeptical explanation, and Johnson’s sighting prompted others to come forward with sightings of their own.

"I saw this same object," Justin Tasselmyer commented. "About 13 years ago, while driving northeast on I-88 in central New York. It was over a field, only about 500 feet off the ground. A metallic cube about 10ft in diameter, spinning and rotating while stationary, the sun would reflect off the sides as it rotated. When I saw your video it sent chills through me, it is identical in appearance and behavior."

As for Johnson, he has his own reasons for disbelieving the skeptical hypotheses presented.

"This thing has haunted me after witnessing it," he told the Daily Mirror. "According to records, the object was flying against the wind that day so I don't believe it was a balloon. Plus the Federal Aviation Administration said they showed nothing in that area during that time. I've never seen a drone like that and couldn't understand how it would stay in the air with that much flipping."

"I really couldn't tell you what it was, but it's nothing publicly known about," he added. "If I had to put money on a guess, it would be otherworldly origins or secret government tech."

Contrary to Johnson’s statement, weather data for that time and location indicates the wind was blowing at 9 mph out of the southeast during his sighting, meaning that the object’s final heading of northwest would place it with the wind.

Although the object has not been conclusively identified, the weather data available does support the hypothesis that what Johnson witnessed was a balloon, especially if its originally perceived heading of southwest can be linked to another weather phenomenon.

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