2000-04-15 - Gulf of Mexico, FL - Sphere

My wife and I were on the last night of a Western Caribbean cruise aboard the msRyndam. I had put our luggage out in the hall of the ship to be collected as we would be ending our trip the next morning. We departed Key West at 5:00pm and were sailing south going around the end of Florida heading for Fort Lauderdale. I was out on the deck listening to the waves and gazing at the stars when I thought I saw a metorite. Yet, it I thought it was strange that the light appeared on the horizon looking west at the Gulf of Mexico and moved upward into the sky in a 45 degree arc. I payed closer attention thinking it might be a satellite or who knows maybe the space shuttle was up in a mission ( I didn't really know...but I have seen the shuttle coming in before in the evening sky in my home state of Texas)...anyway this is where is gets strange...as the pinpoint of white light arched across the sky it got larger...it was spherical in shape (about the size of a fingernail at arms length) and I noticed a color shift to orange. It seemed to emit a hazy glow maybe from heat...then, as it continued to arch across the sky I noticed that it was not flying a straight course but was oscillating rapidly up and down as it continued moving forward...seemed unstable...then it dropped down approx 500 to 1000 feet, hovered for an instant and then did a reverse arch back and above its original course and finally proceeded to the SouthEast at 5 times the speed it was moving before...It just dissapeared. Never seen anything like this...don't know what to make of it.

This sighting weirded me out...and I'm not really in to this kind of thing...hope the information helps...maybe somebody else near Florida saw it that night