SIGHTING: IKEJA, LAGOS (NIGERIA)

Witness Testimony

"While staying in Nigeria for business during the winter of 2009-2010, I was standing in front of a building on Ogundana Street in Ikeja, Lagos. This was in January 2010, but I cannot remember the exact date. It was around 11.00 in the morning. It was partly clouded, no rain. There seemed to be clouds on different levels. When I looked up into a northwestern direction (for no particular reason; I was just looking around a bit), I saw what seemed like a spherical object in the sky, which appeared to be stationary between the different layers of clouds. I could see the clouds under it and the clouds above it (or behind it) move by the wind, but this object remained absolutely stationary. It did not move an inch. At some moments, my view was blocked by the lower clouds for short moments, but when those clouds had passed, the object was still at exactly the same position in the sky. At first I thought it could perhaps be a hot air balloon, but that would have moved along with the wind. Besides, the location is very close to the international airport of Lagos and the object was very close or perhaps even right in the approach route of aircraft landing at that airport. Considering the nearby clouds, I guessed that the object was about as big as or indeed larger than a hot air balloon. Also, unlike a hot air balloon, it was perfectly spherical, whereas a balloon would be a bit tapered downwards. This object was as round as a perfect ball or orb. Its colour was evenly dark brown, but it had a number of black rectangular spots on its surface. These were of different sizes and were positioned on various levels on the surface, but all in an even horizontal pattern, like the windows at different storeys of a building. However, they did not really look like windows, but rather like pure black surface areas. The edges of these areas were sharply defined, as was the entire object in the sky as well. The whole thing was very clearly and sharply visible in broad daylight. Judging by the clouds, I would say it was about a mile away from me, while I was looking at it at an angle of about 45 degrees from where I was standing, but it could have been further away, depending on the distance of the clouds above or behind it. The object was not turning or moving in any way. It was just there, perfectly still and perfectly stationary. Nothing was sticking out of it. It did not emit anything. It did not make any sound, at least nothing that would be audible above normal street noise. Local people who saw it as well told me they had never seen it before. After I had observed it like this for about 20 minutes, a small cloud passed in front of it, as many other small clouds had done before, but this time the object was simply gone when the cloud had passed. However, I had not seen it coming from behind the clouds or moving away in any other way. It had just disappeaered. Even though I have checked the sky many times after this event, I have never seen it again. I have tried to report it locally, but nobody seemed to be interested. When I recently heard about MUFON, I decided to report it here. "