Published: 12:52 PM 2/2/2010

FEB. 1, 2010 -- ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH

LAKE SAINT LOUIS — Bill Cole peered through binoculars at the round, flashing object floating above the treeline Saturday night near his home.

He called police about 9:30 p.m., wondering if anyone else saw the shape he described as a flying saucer illuminated with a band of bright colors.

"You could see the lights on the thing changing from bright red, to blue, to light green, to violet and changing back to red again," said Cole, 64, who lives in the Harbor Town subdivision.

A second call came into police, and a Lake Saint Louis officer who was dispatched to investigate caught a glimpse of the flickering shape from his patrol car before it vanished from the night sky.

The mystery prompted Steve Probst, a manager of the Lake Saint Louis Community Association, to circle the lake Monday morning in search of clues, but he came up empty.

"I did see something, and I don't know what the hell it was," said Jack Hogrebe, 30, a neighbor.

Fear not, fellow Earthlings. The answer lies with Paul Bauer, 51, an inventor and electrical engineer who lives across a narrow cove from Cole and Hogrebe.

Bauer was testing one of his latest devices Saturday night: a remote-controlled helium balloon. The 6-foot-diameter balloon with a ring of flashing, colored LED lights was hovering 100 feet in the air and tied to his truck trailer. It hit a tree branch as Bauer was guiding it down and deflated.

"It's just an experiment to see if it would look good as an advertising balloon," said Bauer, who hopes to sell it to businesses looking for high visibility.

"It had the effect that I was looking for," he said.