SIGHTING: BASEL (SWITZERLAND)
Witness Testimony
"Pilot Sighting of Motionless Silver Circle Above SwitzerlandI am a pilot. On this particular afternoon I was operating the Beechcraft Kingair 200 on a flight from Southwestern France to my destination of Frankfurt, Germany. I was flying at an altitude of 27,000 feet.At approximately 14:00 Central European Time, I noticed the other pilot bending his neck in an upward position and gazing out the cockpit window. The sky was clear and it was a beautiful day. He said, “that’s another airplane up above us, right?” I looked up and I did see another jet approximately 8,000 feet above our position leaving a distinct contrail as it flew overhead in a westerly direction. I said, “ya, it’s beautiful, huh?” He replied, “ok…but what in the world is that”, while pointing at an object that appeared to be well above the jet we just saw fly above our position.The strange object in question must have been at an altitude of at least 25,000 feet above the aircraft we just saw. So, that would mean the object was at a possible altitude of 60,000 feet.Commercial aircraft cruise in the mid to high 30,000 ft range. Some corporate jets like the Gulfstream V can cruise in the high 40,000 foot range. I don’t know of any current operating aircraft operating at an extremely high altitude like the 60,000 ft range.The object was a perfect circle. It was not a disc, not saucer shaped, but a geometrically perfect circle. The color was silver. There were no lights on it. To me, there appeared to be some type of aura or haze around the circle. It was motionless. We only lost sight of the object because we flew underneath it.My reaction is to say it was a weather balloon. However, I have never seen a weather balloon, so I can not be confident in making such a statement. I would say its mass would have to be similar to the size of a B737.The event was witnessed by myself, the co-pilot and our passenger. We joked about it, but afterwards I had a bit of an uneasy feeling due to the fact that I was unable to identify the object we all encountered. "
