It was about 1:12 AM. I was out on my back porch listening to the radio and looking at the sky. I saw an airplane that must have been at least 5-10 miles away from where I was viewing and at a very high altitude. It was a very clear sky so I had no problem seeing the outline of the plane and could see the lights flashing. I remember thinking well I wish I could be up there with you pilots. Then not even a minute later. I noticed this extremely bright light coming in from the corner of my eye traveling southwest. It was definitely moving faster than any conventional aircraft, but I could tell it was not moving full speed. I could see the light coming through a large tree before I got a full view of the object. As soon as I saw the light coming through the tree and saw how bright it was and how large it was I got up to get a better view of it once it passed the tree in my backyard.To my surprise it was a very VERY large pure white Sphere traveling across the sky. Didn't seem like it was descending. Was just traveling in a straight path in the sky. This object was brighter than the moon in the sky that night, brighter than any full moon I have ever seen. It was almost the size of the moon in the sky. There is no way this thing was a plane. It was simply massive. I've never seen any type of craft as large as this. Football fields upon football fields. The light emitting from the craft was extremely white, white as paper, whiter than any man made light I have ever seen. Whiter and brighter than the light that is reflected by the moon. I live near an airport and enjoy watching various jets, civilian planes, helicopters, etc, every single night. Not even the brightest spotlight from helicopters could even touch on the scale of how bright this object was. It made absolutely no sound as it passed by. Had no trail of any kind. I have seen hundreds of shooting stars, even a major meteor that was reported on my local news. That one was pretty bright but nothing like this and that had a trail and was descending as well. The way this was moving made it clear to me as soon as a saw it that it was being intelligently controlled.When I first noticed the object I immediately thought it was a UFO. It was too large and bright to be a meteor, and traveled on such a straight not descending path. The amount of energy it would require to generate that much light made it clear to me it was not a meteor or something falling into the atmosphere. The path was just too linear for that.As soon as I saw it I felt that I was witnessing something with a tremendous amount of energy being generated. Unfortunately my house was in the way of its path so I only saw this object for 40-60 seconds, but that was more than enough. The sheer size of it and brightness. Helicopters 100 feet off the ground wouldn't even compare. I have seen before what I thought was a UFO it was a bright orange disk that I saw fly by some power lines several years ago. That was brighter than any aircraft I had ever seen, plus our aircraft don't illuminate the entire outline of the craft. Even that did not compare to the sighting I had tonight. I never imagined I would see anything else like that again, it was really a treat to see.