2003-01-29 - Riverside, CA - Disk

spinning, orange, glowing object disappears and reappears in a different area within seconds

I went out to take my dog out before bed and noticed an orange type of star. I first thought of Mars and I stood admiring its brightness and color. I then noticed that it began to move. I stood watching and waiting to see some sort of a beacon to identify it as some type of plane, helicopter, blimp or weather balloon etc. It then moved across the sky with a bright, orange, flame colored glow. this took about a minute as it moved slowly. I didn't think much of it yet because it moved slowly. I called my wife who was inside watching television and she wasn't impressed at all until it suddenly disappeared. My first thought was it disappeared behind the marine layer but then we noticed that stars in the same area were still visible. She then noticed that it re-appeared on the horizon to the south. We both watched it again for about 10 seconds before it again disappeared. We were both still skeptical and I went inside to get the telephone to phone my father. I went outside again after a 2-3 minutes and my wife soon followed and this time I searched and saw nothing. I turned to go back in the house and looked up to the east and saw the same orange glow quickly approaching our direction at a low altitude. It moved westwardly across the sky and at that altitude and we saw it pass over us and noticed that there was an outer edge that was spinning slowly in a clockwise direction. We were able to see this because of the orange glow underneath appeared to be lighting up some type of marker in a square shape that rotated. We both watched as it moved west and after about 15 seconds it disappeared.