A Bristol man has caught a 10 second video clip of a mystery object flying over the city centre of Bristol on Tuesday morning, February 14. Questions have surrounded the sighting as to whether it was a balloon similar to those spotted over various skies in the last few days, a UFO or simply a party balloon which got caught up in the wind.
Andrew Smith, who was working from home in Lawford’s Gate near Cabot Circus, said: “I spotted it out of my window and when I first saw it, I thought it was a weather balloon. But with everything going on in the news, I wondered what it was,” he said, referring to news reports this week of suspected spy balloons in US and China airspaces.
“But it could just have easily been a party balloon gone astray. With regard to size, there was no real frame of reference, it floated away from east to west,” he said. The balloon appears to be silver in colour and moves across the sky at an even speed.
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This week has seen relations deteriorating between the US and China over ‘spy balloons’ with both countries reporting unidentified balloons entering their respective airspaces. Both countries have denied sending high altitude airspace balloons to conduct surveillance.
Meanwhile the last time a UFO was reported in Bristol skies was in August last year, when a resident caught a clip of a ‘bright circular light’ over Easton which was reported to have stayed in the area for up to ten minutes. The resident said at first she thought it was a star or perhaps even a helicopter and that it was “moving very fast”.
Prior to that, a strange silver object was spotted in the sky above Filton during last July. It was spotted by a local resident in the early evening and although the image was taken from some distance away, the object appeared to have some string-like detail dangling from it. While it almost looks like a spaceship in shape, it could also have been a helium balloon.
According to a report in The Guardian, there is a lot of ‘sky trash’ that is reported in skies across the globe. This is similar to space trash, with ‘sky trash’ being objects which have been launched into the sky.
While some fall to earth, others simply accumulate in the sky. These are predominantly balloons and can include weather balloons or similar which were sent up for scientific research.
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