Julious Figueroa and the golden orb beside a skydiving plane

Julious Figueroa spent two years in the US Navy. Then he took a job in the Midwest as a skydive pilot. He lives in Virginia, and WHSV, the Harrisonburg television station that later told his story, calls him a Virginia pilot. But the flight happened in the Midwest. No state, airport or drop zone has ever been named.

July 10, 2022. Figueroa was flying a load of skydivers up to jump altitude. "We were climbing to 10,000 feet, and at around 4,300 feet I was looking into the distance and this thing caught my eye."

The object started getting closer. Then it was right there, about 15 feet to his left, heading north. "The object was a spherical golden orb that was flying very fast." It was the size of a small car. You couldn't see it when you looked at it directly, a quality WHSV said other pilots had also reported.

Without realizing it, he started turning his plane to the left. As the orb went by, he let out a yell. The people in the back looked out the window. Three of them saw it. One was an instructor.

Figueroa asked air traffic control whether they had a drone on radar. They said no. He called back, described the object and asked if they had seen it. "There was a long pause on the other end, and then they said they didn't see it."

There is no video. There is no physical trace. The image WHSV ran with the story is captioned "This is the described object seen by Figueroa during his flight" and credited "Julious Figueroa (From Burst)." Burst is a free stock photo library. The picture appears to be a likeness, not a photograph taken in the air.

The story surfaced almost a year later. On June 28, 2023, WHSV reporter Jacob Fife published it, noting that Figueroa now stays more alert on every flight. Rewrites followed on Planet-Today and Anomalien under the headline "Video: Strange UFO Nearly Collides with Commercial Jet in 2022." Neither page has a video, and the aircraft was a skydiving plane, not a commercial jet. Anomalien also moved the scene to Virginia. The rewrites add that the orb "disappeared over the horizon," a line not found in the original report.

No official investigation is known. WHSV mentions no report to the FAA, the All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office, NUFORC or MUFON. The two calls to air traffic control are the only official contact on record. No sceptic has published an analysis. Metabunk carries threads on other pilots and their orbs, but none on this flight. The one ordinary explanation on record is the one Figueroa raised himself when he asked about a drone. The record has its gaps. One witness is quoted. The location is unnamed. The three passengers have never told their own story.

The golden orb joins a cluster of pilot orb reports from 2022. That year an MQ-9 Reaper filmed a silver orb over the Middle East, footage the Pentagon's AARO released in 2023. In September 2022 another pilot over the Denver area reported circling orbs of light, logged as MUFON Case 125796. Figueroa's encounter has no footage and no radar. What it has is a pilot, three passengers, and an orb you could not see by looking straight at it.