It was a clear night and I stepped out on the back stoop to see if there were some northern lights or anything while I smoked a cigarette. My 14 year old daughter came out with me. We were just standing around talking when we saw a very bright light rising from behind a building on our property. There is a small airport nearby so at first I assumed it was a helicopter or plane, but it moved so fast - and seemingly straight up into the air that it seemed somehow wrong. The light was almost amber and bright enough that it looked like a meteor or something (hard to explain). There was no sound whatsoever, which spooked us a little because we can always hear planes or helicopters when they're that low to the ground.

The light rose up and hovered for about 30 seconds, during which time my daughter ran into the house to get the camera. It looked huge--assuming it was far enough away that we couldn't hear it, that is. It was too dark to make out any shape of a craft; it was just the very intense, bright, orangy-yellow light.

After hovering, whatever it was shot off due north and was completely out of view within a minute. Whatever it may have been, it definitely did NOT land at the nearby (4 1/2 miles northeast) airport or at the hospital helipad in town (which is about 4 miles northwest of us). We would have seen it descending. While I realize that it's entirely plausible or even likely that the object was something human-made, it was downright spooky and I've never seen anything else like it. The way it moved was just bizarre.