2012-11-17 - Bozeman, MT - Circle

Red sphere that made obvious speed and altitude gains as well as direction changes.

My girlfriend and I were outside smoking when I remembered that there was a meteor shower happening. We both were looking south up at Jupiter, when my eyes focused in on a group of reddish stars, one star in particular caught my eye because it slowly started to pull away from the other (it was stationary I focused and recognized it's position) My first thought was that I found an orbiting satellite because it started out as slow as an orbiting satellite and seemed to follow a smooth almost floating path to the south west for what seemed like an inch in the sky. The object then seemed to skip almost as it gained speed and turned north gaining altitude and continuing north for about a foot in the sky. It then made a long smooth curve like maneuver towards north east and then east following the horizon and up behind cloud coverage and out.

At the moment I saw what I thought was a satellite I pointed it out to my girlfriend and she confirmed that she saw it also as it began to speed up. We then both watched in amazement and it took off. We both saw a obviously red circle that seemed to be able to control speed, altitude, and direction. She mentioned that she thought it might have had a cloudy faded orb surrounding it also. The object seemed to be going faster than anything we have ever seen before while following a very strange smooth flight plan. No other lights were visible on it and the sky was brightly lit, it was almost spooky how bright the sky was. We also recognized 7 meteors that entered the atmosphere and disappeared just like they always do. We are confused and excited about what we saw and are wondering if this is normal or has anyone else experienced this.