2003-01-31 - Orchid Island, FL - Sphere

Dancing amber stars out over the ocean

I am a security guard for an exclusive gated community and a retired police officer that is inherently skeptic about most non factual things. This is my first known sighting. I was on the oceanside of the beach club checking the club's beach access boardwalk. I routinely look up and down the beach for small boats or boats out in the ocean because there is a lot of drug smuggling along what is know as the Treasure Coast of FL. It was clear and the sky was full of stars. In fact, I believe that night there was an alignment of planets, the moon, and earth going on. I saw a light on the horizon of the ocean, almost due east. I at first thought it was a fishing boat out on the gulf stream. However, I noticed the light seemed a little high off the horizon for the mast of a fishing boat. It was pitch black out there and all of a sudden, the light shot up into the sky going very high. It looked like an amber star, a small star or one that is very far away. I of course was astonished and began observing it. It appeared to be stationary in the sky then all of a sudden it would move right, then left, and made loops like a helicopter. This went on for awhile so I went back to my cruiser and got out the binoculars, 10X and focused them as best as I could looking into the black background. I could tell this object emitted it's own source of light and had red areas on it's surface. Sometime, when it would move I thought I could tell it was oval in shape, but I can't be sure. I went to the beach gate house and had another officer go out on the beach and observe the object. He came back stating, "that thing is dancing." I observed it later while locking up the building, standing on the second floor balcony of the beach club. I locked my arms in a bi-pod position holding the binoculars in one position. The object would move out of my field of view and come back. I went on with my duties and at 0230 I looked for the object again but it was gone. The next two nights I saw the object in the sky, almos! t due ea st, about 45 degrees from the horizon. The third night I also noticed one, maybe two more objects at the same altitude that looked like the first object. They were spread out going south down the coast. The reason I am reporting this is because I believe my sighting is almost the same as two others on this board, Mokena, Il and McKinleyville, Ca. I will say this, if I hadn't seen the object shoot up from the horizon into the sky, I could tell myself that these objects were stars and their movements could be optical illusions. I'm a believer now that there is something unknown going on.