2009-03-16 - Saint Augustine, FL - Circle

Large bright circular object viewed over the ocean's horizon at St. Augustine Pier

I was surfing at the St. Augustine pier and spotted a bright yellow, perfectly circular object hovering in the Northeast area of the sky right above the waterline. In the middle of the object was a smaller dark circle, almost like a small hole. I watched the object move from the northeast towards the north very slowly, in a slight up and down pattern. The object slowly rotated as it was traveling across the sky, changing from a perfect circle to a thin line, as if I were looking at the object from it's side. The object also slowly changed color from bright yellow to orange, to a darker shade of orange, and then back to bright yellow. It continued to rotate from a full circular shape to a line then back again. The object completely disappeared and reappared twice as I watched it travel slowly across the horizon line above the water. I paddled up to two other surfers in the water, pointed out the object to them and asked if they had been watching it. One said he had been watching it and didn't know "what the hell that thing is". The other surfer said it could possibly be a kiteboarder, but there is no way a kite could make a perfectly circular shape like what we were seeing, or be that far out to sea. All three of us ruled out certain slow moving objects like a blimp, or even the moon. The moon could not have traveled that far along the coast in 15 minutes, nor change color, nor disappear as it did. I called the St. Augustine Beach Police Department when I got home. They said no one else had called with such a report today, and was hung up on in mid-sentence while I was trying to honestly describe what I had seen.