We focus on Oregon UFOs on the Oregon MUFON website, but this sighting and report is so similar to our "balloon mimic" UFOs that I thought I'd include it.  This report comes from Chula Vista, CA. After you read this, you'll see that It is not just Oregonians who see "balloon mimic" UFOs!

My friend Dave Peterson (pseudonym), whom I've known for many years and who has a casual interest in UFOs, sent me the following report on September 10, 2011, via email. He was outside his house doing some work when he observed the following.

Dave's Words

I'm feeling this was a bunch of white balloons, but you never know.

They were traveling west to east very, very . . .

. . . slowly and then the string appeared and looked like it might be knotted up about half way up like maybe there had been another bunch there and they had popped.

As it approched a cloud, it seemed to stop. The cloud was traveling slowly from the southeast to the southwest and the balloon joined up and then disappeared. The last shot was just as it went into the evaporating cloud and within a minute the cloud and it were both gone.

There was a red-tailed hawk circling in the area, but I didn't get it in [any of] the photo[s]. The hawk was about the size of your thumb at that altitude.  [So I'm] guessing [the balloons were at] maybe 1500 feet.

I tried to locate the [falling] string with my binoculars but failed to.

I took the photos with my little Canon Powershot digital elf SD750 around 5 pm today 9-10-11.

It should be emphasized that Dave searched the skies for a couple of minutes with binoculars looking for any sign of balloons or falling strings supposing the UFO had been balloons, and they had popped as he notes. He didn't see anything. So apparently this UFO simply disappeared, possibly using the passing cloud as "cover" for its disappearing act.

Balloons ID Unlikely

I examined Dave's photos #4 and #5 and measured the tails in relation to the head of the UFO. Supposing this UFO were a cluster of party balloons with a (very long) string, the balloon cluster would be, say, around five to six feet in diameter. (Note that this looks like a cluster of balloons due to the highly variable and irregular shape of the UFO.  See the illustrations below.) This makes the tail ("string") around 110 feet in length!  This is a ridiculous length for a cluster of party balloons and might even weigh down the cluster so that it would not lift off the ground.  (I'll let you make that calculation.)

For my money, this is another case of the "balloon mimic" UFO—and this time in a completely different state: California. 

UFO From Photo #4

UFO Photos For Comparison (Just the "Heads")

UFO Photos Information