What Did I See?

Yesterday, I was sitting in my car in the parking lot at 1132 Meriden Road, Waterbury, CT. At about 5:30 PM EDT, I looked up toward the east-southeast and saw a plane travel just above the treetops from left to right. It caught my eye because it looked like it had pontoons.

While watching the plane, I noticed the an object traveling in the opposite direction beyond the plane about 30 degrees above the horizon. The object was much farther away than the plane. It was just a point of light, a reflection of the sun moving very slowly out of a stratocumulus cloud into the clear sky.

The object did not travel in a straight path, but seemed to twist and turn slowly. As it did, the reflection would dim and the object would become a darker object momentarily, then the object would twist and turn again and become a point of light or reflection of the sun. It was as if one side of the object was very reflective, while the other side was dull and not reflective.

While I watched it, it traversed about 15 degrees in about 10 minutes along a generally horizontal path. Then it encountered another cloud bank and faded away into the cloud bank.

Weather conditions were partly cloudy, temperature 85ºF, a light westerly breeze, and no precipitation.

What did I see?

A balloon is my guess: a silver metallic balloon that they sell in stores for parties with graphics on one side (the dull side) and nothing on the other side (the reflective side).

The only thing that contradicts that guess is that if it was your standard party balloon, could I even see it considering how far away it seemed to be. The object came out of one stratocumulus cloud and disappeared into another. Stratocumulus clouds top out at about 6500 feet and these were at a 30 degree angle above the horizon not overhead, so who knows how many miles away the object was located.

Could I see a 12-inch wide balloon X miles away?