Mysterious ‘orb’ spotted over New York City days after Pentagon revealed near-miss between plane and UFO

A mysterious orb-like object was spotted over New York City‘s Hudson River in a news broadcast, sparking wild conspiracies.

Fox 5 News aired the segment Monday, showing an apparent bright object zooming into the shot of the city’s famous skyline.

The video, shot by a helicopter, captured a fast-moving ball of light starting from Hoboken, New Jersey and swooping around toward the World Trade Center where it vanished.

Experts have suggested the ‘orb’ was either an optical artifact from the helicopter glass in front of the camera or an out-of-focus bird.

But the sighting has led some New Yorkers to question if ‘aliens are among us’ – as it comes less than a week after a Pentagon report that highlighted a a near-miss between a commercial airliner and a mysterious object off the coast of the city.

Harvard physicist, Avi Loeb, wrote that the mysterious orb was created by ‘a bright spot from reflection of sunlight as the camera gradually changed its orientation relative to the sun and the ground.

Loeb continued to explain that if the orb was a real object, it would have been moving at the speed of sound, not anything extraordinary.

The video, first reported on by the New York Post, was captured at 6:05am ET, according to the timestamp on the news segment.

But a representative from ‘Good Day New York’ told the New York Post they could not determine the exact day when the footage was taken, noting it could have been last year.

If the footage did capture an unknown object, it would have been traveling about 2,700 miles per hour to cover a three-mile distance in just four seconds.

The only known comparable would be the Lockheed SR-71 Blackbird, which can travel around 2,200 miles per hour and is among the fastest jet aircraft ever built.

Enigma Lab’s UAP advisor Alejandro Rojas told DailyMail.com that the sighting was ‘a weird one.’

‘I am not sure it would be a reflection from the helicopter glass because the helicopter is moving so slowly and the object doesn’t seem to move the same way it would if it was a reflection on the glass,’ he said.

‘I thought it could be an out-of-focus bird, but towards the end the object looks transparent, which would be more indicative of a light refraction of some sort rather than a solid object.’

Fox 5 New York shared the clip on its YouTube page where viewers also spotted the mysterious orb.

‘Any else see the UAP? 2:44- 2:47. Any guess [as] to what it is,’ the second comment for the video read.

Another user suggested it was ‘just a blue balloon,’ but another person said: ‘No that was more than a balloon, never seen a balloon move so fast and deliberately.’

‘UAP for sure, notice how it curves as it’s approaching,’ one user commented.

New York was also highlighted in the Pentagon report released one day after House lawmakers called for greater government transparency during a hearing on UAPs.

The Pentagon’s review detailed 757 cases of UAP encounters that were reported to US authorities mainly between May 1, 2023 and June 1, 2024.

That total includes 272 incidents that occurred before that time but were not previously reported.

Reporting witnesses included commercial and military pilots as well as ground-based observers.

Most of these incidents occurred in airspace, but 49 took place at altitudes estimated to be at least 62 miles above Earth’s surface, which is considered space.

During the reporting period, 81 reports originated from US military operating areas.

Other reports included a witness who reported a ‘jellyfish’ UAP with flashing lights.

The report states that trends of UAP morphologies remain consistent with historical patterns.

‘Unidentified lights and round/spherical/orb-shaped objects made up the bulk of cases in which reports provided distinct visual characteristics,’ it reads.

‘Objects within the ‘other’ category include unique descriptions such as ‘green fireball,’ ‘a jellyfish with [multicolored] flashing lights,’ and a ‘silver rocket approximately six feet long.’

Investigators were able to explain nearly 300 of the incidents, and in many cases, the unknown objects were identified as balloons, birds, aircraft, drones or satellites.