What i originally thought was a missile like object and its com trail leaving long beach airport area headed straight upwards. thought it was a missile test of some kind near the airport as it would have been 15-20 miles from my location at the time. i noticed it driving headed west on ball road after exiting the 57 freeway. i stopped at a restaurant on the corner of ball and state collage and observed it changing direction going se towards me with a large com trail. similar to the arc a missile would make on its trajectory path. the com trail at that point became sporadic and when it was at its closest point to me i realized it was a sphere not an airplane. it dissaperaed before i could get proper video of it. at its closest point to me it had no trail and was clearly visible to be a spherical object traveling at about non commercial airplane height above the ground. it was large enough to clearly see unmistakabley what it was but could not gauge the actual size. if i had to estimate though it would have been smaller than to be expected from the trailing it left in the sky. possibly the size of a small suv if i had to guess. the video i do have is not great but the object does not look like an airplane with the usual com trail. i noticed that after the object was not visible and miles from the original location that the commercial jets were scrambling to finally land. more than i have ever seen landing while leaving trails of their own before. the com trails were also distinctly different in the shape left as well as the way they surrounded the exiting plane versus the unidentifiable object. it looked like the trail was the object not coming out from behind a distinct plane shape.