Reports from the Void: 'I Noticed a Bright Ball of Light'

Reports from the Void is a repository to share those stories for which we do not have enough information to make a full report. This is usually because of little or no communication from the witness following their initial submission. The Singular Fortean Society will always provide as much information as possible regarding any correspondence during our attempts to speak with those involved.

This series is meant only to present you with the full breadth of the information sent to us and makes no judgments towards the veracity of any stories shared within it.

The Singular Fortean Society received the following email with “spy balloon / UFO” in the subject line on April 15th, 2023.

I live in Windsor, Maine. The night before the media broadcast about Chinese spy balloons, I was walking from my father-in-law's house to my own home, which is a stone's throw away, when I noticed a bright ball of light. At first from a distance, I thought was a star. It was around 8pm eastern standard time.
I stopped and watched it when I realized it was moving. The closer it got, [the more I realized that] I had no idea what I was looking at because it was round and lit up with a bright white light. It didn't make any noise at all and had to have been moving really fast because I watched it move from the horizon from the west and it went all the way to the horizon to the east of me headed towards the coast in a matter maybe a minute.
I'm not sure how high up it was but I did try to take pictures and I had to zoom in to get a picture. When I looked at the two pictures that I had snapped in rapid succession the object looked bright orange, which I assume is because my phone is an android and doesn't take the best pics. The one thing I did notice is you can make out what looks like a square or rectangle made up of smaller squares or rectangles on this round object.
So, I was a little in awe when I watched the news the following day. The object I saw on the news was shot down over the ocean in South Carolina.

Investigator Tobias Wayland replied to the email in an attempt to gain more information but received no response.

The Chinese spy balloon mentioned above was one of several unidentified flying objects shot down over North America in February of this year.

The first such object was publicly identified by authorities as a recovered Chinese spy balloon, although the remaining three are so far unidentified.

The origin and nature of the unidentified flying objects remains unknown, although a few details have emerged.

One object over Alaska was reportedly the size of a small car and "cylindrical and silver-ish gray,” while one taken down over Canada was described as a “small, metallic balloon with a tethered payload below it,” and an object over Lake Huron was said to be octagonal with strings hanging off the side and no discernible payload.

None of the objects reportedly showed any signs of propulsion or maneuverability.

So far, both the U.S. and Canadian governments have claimed not to have recovered any wreckage from the other downed unidentified flying objects.

The White House was quick to deny the involvement of anything otherworldly in the events.

"I just wanted to make sure we address this from the White House. I know there have been questions and concerns about this. But there is no, again, no indication of aliens or extraterrestrial activity with these recent takedowns. Again, there is no indication of aliens or extraterrestrial activity with these recent takedowns. I wanted to make sure that the American people knew that; all of you knew that. And it was important for us to say that from here because we've been hearing a lot about it," press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said in a press briefing.

Furthermore, the White House said intelligence officials were "considering as a leading explanation that these could be tied to commercial or research entities and benign."

This was followed by President Biden saying that the objects "were most likely balloons tied to private companies, recreation, or research institutions studying weather or conducting other scientific research."

It is impossible to determine the exact date of this witness’s sighting without more information, but news reports of the Chinese spy balloon referenced by them began on February 1st and by February 4th the balloon had been brought down. So, their sighting likely happened between January 31st and February 4th, depending on which media broadcast they saw and whether or not their last sentence means that the news report they had seen was of the balloon being shot down or if they simply saw later that it had been.

The weather in Windsor was both cloudy on some evenings and clear on others during that span, which means depending on when the actual sighting took place, it’s possible that what they had seen was a satellite.

Satellites routinely travel from west to east in the sky and often have the appearance of a bright star.

It is unlikely that they saw the International Space Station, since it would not have been visible over Maine during this period.

However, if the sighting took place on one of the evenings with significant cloud cover, then it’s possible that the object could have represented some anomalous phenomenon.