About 8 years ago my friend and I were babysitting my kid sister and my sister’s friends at the pool at our folk’s house, which sits at the top of a small valley. The sun was getting low in the sky, but there was still a good amount of light out. I glanced out over the valley and immediately saw a bundle of balloons rocketing up the slope towards us. There was no wind out, but the bundle was traveling around 40mph. The balloon strings converged and wrapped around a miniature chair, sitting in which, i could see the silhouetted figure of a gnome (hat and all, a little larger than an american football) sitting in the chair. it was traveling so fast, i realized at that moment there were only a couple seconds left before it would reach us, and i wanted my friend to see it to make sure i wasn’t crazy. in a split second i turned to her, grabbed her, and forcibly rotated her by the shoulders towards this thing, which promptly disappeared into the tree line not a half second later, a few houses down. “did you just see that?” i asked her. she nodded, and confirmed what i had seen. obviously, we were both spooked. in retrospect i wish i had chased after it at that moment. later that night we dared each other to go find the gnome, and we went out with flashlights onto the hill. we found the balloons tangled in a tree, but there was no trace of the chair/gnome.