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A NASA engineer has detailed a frightening experience involving glowing orbs over Florida and what the US military did when they intercepted the UFOs.

Dr Charles Buhler, a physicist at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center, claimed that in 2014 he and his wife were at Cocoa Beach when they spotted a strange orb appear in the sky, which lit up like a 'nuclear bomb went off,' three miles away.

'It looked like a giant nuclear weapon. It wasn't a mushroom cloud with it, but it was just the brightness of it,' Buhler told podcast host Danny Jones.

'And we were like, "This is weird." So the helicopter hung over for a few minutes and then just went back and the light was still there.'

The incident got even stranger after Buhler said a military helicopter from Patrick Air Force Base flew out to examine the UFO and then simply flew off without taking action.

Buhler said: 'They're like, "Okay, they know what it's not. It's not the Russians. It's not the Chinese. So, okay, it's not them. We'll be fine. Let's go back." That's my guess. They know what it's not.'

However, Buhler claimed the glowing orb began moving toward him after the military left the area, coming within 200 feet of the shore, following the scientist and then breaking into five or six separate basketball-sized orbs.

The objects were allegedly seen rotating like a wheel, with half of them going underwater while the other half stayed visible from the beach.

Pictured: NASA engineer Charles Buhler views glowing orb UFO encounters similar to his experience in Florida a decade ago

Pictured is an artistic impression of a 'mother orb' releasing the smaller 'orbs' as reported by the federal agents in October 2023 at a similar encounter to Buhler's

Despite similar sightings being recently released in the Pentagon's UFO disclosure files, and thousands of other orb encounters reported to civilian-run websites, the US government and NASA have maintained that there is no physical proof that UFOs or extraterrestrials exist.

Buhler claimed the orb appeared around 10pm ET along the eastern coast of Florida, noting that countless people likely saw the craft from the nearby buildings and condos facing the Atlantic.

The scientist initially thought the object was a boat on the water before it pulsed with a light that illuminated the entire area and was too bright to be a standard signal flare.

'Then it gets real bright... It got so bright it lit up the whole beach as far as I can see. It made shadows of us against the buildings behind us,' Buhler said on the Danny Jones Podcast on August 14.

That was when one or two aircraft reportedly took off from the nearby military base and were seen hovering over the pulsating orb in the Atlantic.

Despite all of this taking place near a populated beach community and a major Air Force facility, Buhler said he could not find a single mention or report of the incident the following day.

However, his experience with the orbs is reportedly a well-known phenomenon in the area, with tour groups actively seeking them out and attempting to summon the orbs through psychic communication.

'Cape Canaveral is a huge port, and there's a lot of sightings off of cruise ships of these same red what you saw, what I saw, things following the cruise ships like dolphins do,' Buhler said. 'People have that on video. No one knows what the heck it is. I don't think anyone knows what it is.'

Dr Charles Buhler, a physicist and electrostatics specialist at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center, recently discussed a UFO encounter over Cocoa Beach, Florida

While Buhler believed the orb UFOs were attempting to communicate in a friendly manner, he said the experience on Cocoa Beach quickly turned scary.

Within 15 minutes of the Air Force helicopters leaving the UFO, Buhler claimed the glowing orb began moving closer to the shore, getting within one mile of the beach and appearing to head directly toward the scientist and his wife.

At roughly a third of a mile out, Buhler said the object split into five or six smaller lights which moved to where the waves were breaking, just 200 feet offshore, and began spinning in and out of the water.

'They went and rotated, these five lights, five or six lights... Went like bicycle spokes into the water, halfway out of the water, halfway into the water, and they just kept doing this,' Buhler described. 'It was like the freakiest, I don't know what the hell it was.'

He then detailed how when he and his wife started sprinting away, the lights followed while continuing the spinning motion.

Buhler claimed the whole episode lasted nearly 45 minutes.

A similar cluster of unknown flying orbs was spotted near Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, an Ohio military installation rumored to be linked to UFO activity, on April 8, 2026

Above is an artistic interpretation of a similar orb sighting described by law enforcement in the western US three years ago

Feeling scared, and drawing on things he had read about extraterrestrials as a child, Buhler said he closed his eyes and tried to tell the orbs to go away with his mind.

Shortly after, the lights sank into the water and did not return.

'It wouldn't have gone away if I didn't tell it to. I don't think it would have gone away unless I told it to. It was completely gone after that,' Buhler said.