During the summer of 1976 (sorry, I don't remember the exact month) a friend and I had parked along the shoreline of Lake Michigan in Racine to talk and look out over the lake. It was about 9:00 PM and the night sky was clear.

Shortly after arriving we both spotted a white spherical object moving from our right (north) and traveling in a southerly direction at an exceptionally high rate of speed. The object appeared to be approx. 500' off the deck and about 5 miles out from the shore over Lake Michigan. No noise could be heard correlating to that object. When the object was adjacent to our position it suddenly made a vertical ascent - a 90 degree direction change with no speed adjustment. It ascended a few thousand feet in 1-2 seconds before again making another 90 degree direction change continuing south bound. After what appeared to be only a short distance it then made a single arcing motion upward and quickly disappeared into the upper atmosphere.

A couple of years later I joined the US Air Force and was privileged to observe almost every known aircraft the Air Force had (at that time) flying in their inventory, including the legendary SR-71 Blackbird. Later, I switched services and became a pilot for the US Army and eventually retired. Since that incident I have never witnessed any man made object move at that speed or with the agility to make 90 degree turns not to mention ascend into outer space. I believe that object to have been a UFO of extraterrestrial origin.