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I once saw a completely jet-black ball pass me by at close range, and to this day I can’t really explain it.

It was many years ago, and I was a youngster — probably about 12 years old. Sitting on the balcony of our first-floor home in the east end of London one sunny afternoon, I noticed a slow-moving black object at about roof height some distance away. Being on the first floor of a maisonette, my view was of another block of maisonettes across the road and the other nearby houses’ roofs were lower than me.

It approached from my left quite slowly, at a uniform speed, and I watched it go behind the block of maisonettes opposite and then re-appear beyond the right edge of the building. It drifted off across the rooftops of Leytonstone until it was too far away to be seen. In all the time I observed it, its height, speed and trajectory never changed.

Was it simply a black balloon, escaped from a youngster’s hand? Honestly, I don’t think so — if it was, I feel it would have behaved differently in the summer breeze, dancing around erratically. And it was completely spherical rather than balloon-shaped — there was no string that I could see hanging from the bottom of it, and no place for a string to be attached.

The oddest thing that struck me about it was its utter blackness — it seemed to me as though it was reflecting no light whatsoever, and yet it was a bright, sunny day.

Well, it happened far too long ago now for me to offer an objective opinion about it now — but it’s stuck in my mind for over forty years as a most unusual observation.

I’m from Somerset too, and on the 23rd Aug 2008, my family and I were travelling from West Huntspill to Woolavington, when as we were going over Woolavington Moor, I noticed this huge red ball hovering over Woolavington housing estate. I pointed it out to my family who at first though it was a planet, but it was far too low and the colour was different to anything I’d seen before.

As we pulled onto my daughter’s drive the ball went overhead. It was silent and went off in the direction of Shipham/Cheddar. It then shot up into the sky.

Well, we left our daughter and went on our way back to West Huntspill. When we got to the motorway bridge, my daughter phoned to say that her and my baby grandson were now watching three more of the objects pass over her house. She said they were in a line, and were also silent.

The next day the local radio did a phone-in and people FROM Curry Ivel/Bridgwater/Taunton and Shipham had also seen the objects. Some people had seen eight of them and they were travelling in a V-shape.

Before I saw the object, I always thought a UFO was a saucer shape, but I was very surprised to read about these round balls and am now most interested in finding out what they are.

My hubby thinks they may be military!

I have looked at the chinese lanterns, but the balls were nothing like them at all.

Just thought you might be interested in my story,

Best Wishes

Gill

You’re quite right with your thoughts on eddies and vortices — as your comment came in, I was busy writing up another post explaining the ‘mystery’: Vibrating Pole: Mystery Solved — so full marks to you!