I was in the back yard with a friend of mine. My friend decided to come to visit me from Oregon for the summer so we spent a good part of our summer nights sitting in the back yard at night watching stars. We were both into space at the time, as we met in space camp so space was on our minds all the time. It had to be around midnight or so as we had been laying there for a while and it was very dark out, and I had figured my friend was asleep. I saw what looked to be an aircraft in the distance and I didn't think anything of it because we were near an airport and it was common for aircraft to fly by, but oddly not that late. I kept watching this light approach closer and closer to my house. As it got closer I started to get worried that I should warn someone in my house as it seemed to be approaching where I was. I kept watching and could not move out of fear at this point because it was much closer than I had seen other aircraft get and I really just didn't know what to do. As I watch it became very close and then suddenly stopped moving. I was surprised as it was not making any sound as a helicopter would but was hovering, a time well before known drones. I kept watching and as I did the object accelerated straight up into the air and zipped away so fast and with ease strait up that it looked like a firefly in the night sky. It moved so far up that it curved over the horizon and disappeared. I had recently seen a space shuttle launch in Florida and this object operated exactly the same way yet did not have any propulsion system that I could see. My friend, who was awake and saw the whole thing, asked me what the fuck was that? I said I don't know.
I since then got back in contact with my friend after 10+ years of our sighting together. I had figured I had forgotten something, maybe made something up in the story I had in my mind. He reminded me that everything was exactly as I had thought and that it was the most impactful thing he had ever experienced in his life. I personally worked in the military for many years and have seen rockets, aircraft of all sorts take off and be used during that time, and nothing has come close to what I saw that day.
