1. having fun in the garden on a sunny day. 2. i simply noticed it gaining height diagonally. 3. i thought it was a large soap bubble. 4. it rose slowly and diagonally before moving away on a dead straight course due south at an unwaveringly constant height of 10 feet at a speed of 20 mph, at any rate too fast for me to consider running after it. 5. i asked "what is that?" instead of "what is that?" this struck me afterwards as symptomatic of my dumbfoundedness. my daughter and i gazed at it, shouting to my wife to come and look. she missed it. i was a little fearful. it was very close and very slow at fist and we got a very good long look at it. we had no camera back then. i dicussed everything--shape, size, colour, speed--with my daughter immediately afterwards so as not to forget. we knew it was something we could not explain. 6. it just carried on until it was too far away to see any more.I checked 'basketball' but it was without doubt between 6 and 8 inches in diameter.