1976-07-01 - San Diego, CA - Light

Faint star-like object became larger and sat over the ocean for at least ten minutes.

I was traveling from Minnesota with a friend. We were both eighteen years old and did not have much money so we were sleeping on the beach (Black's Beach). My friend had gone to sleep in his sleeping bag near by and I stayed up to look at the stars. I liked to watch satellites going by when away from city lights. I spotted what I thought at first was a satelllite straight above me. It was very faint at first and going in a straight line heading west. But then it suddenly changed direction. It began heading southwest for a time. Then Northwest. Each change of direction happened instanly i.e. not in an arched tradgectory but more like an instant change, if that makes sense. At this point I woke my friend and he watched it with me. After doing these maneuvers for ten minutes or so, it began to get larger and move toward the western horizon over the ocean. It finally came to a stop just above the water. At this point it was quite large, perhaps the size of a nickle if held straight out. It was a white, glowing ball. It just sat there for about ten minutes. Then it began to ascend again and grow smaller. After a while it just faded out and disappeared. Even thought this happened a long time ago, I still have a vivid recolection of it because it had a big impact on me at the time. It did not fit into the profile fo any aircraft I could think of and its maneuvers were beyond anything I knew of.