At approx 03:40 PST I awoke to go to the bathroom, and at approx 03:45 opened the door which leads from that bathroom on to the deck, and walked outside to enjoy the mild and sweet air of the hills.

It being a very clear night for Southern California, after some strong winds, I went back inside and picked up pair of binoculars which I had left in the bathroom, and taking also a heavy towel, went back outside and lay down on that part of the deck which gives the widest uninterrupted view of the sky above, and started slowly scanning the sky, admiring the star-field.

I noted, and tracked what I assume to be a satellite transiting East-West, a blue-white point-source, steady and constant in its motion.

At about 04:05, I had the binoculars trained almost vertically above (lying down makes for a much steadier view), when I noticed that one of the stars was moving, this time in more or less a South-North trajectory. At first, I thought the blue-white point-source might be a high-flying jet, but through binocs, or even with the naked eye, it should have shown the characteristic strobe lights flashing. I next assumed it must be a satellite again, but as I watched and tracked it’s motion across the zenith towards the North, it flashed once, very briefly, a deep ruby red.

I thought, this is odd, and continued tracking it.

As I was oriented with my head to the East, I was tracking the object to the right, and as I did so, my movement wavered slightly, which is what I thought had caused the object to weave slightly, but when I had steadied myself into a better posture, and was tracking it very steadily, it wove from side to side as it continued in its Northerly direction.

What disconcerted me more, though, was the fact that it seemed to slow down, then pick up speed again, doing this deceleration/acceleration thing in an irregular fashion.

But the most disconcerting thing was the following: At one point, as I was tracking right to keep it in the center of the view-field, I seemed to have lost it, so I stopped, and immediately picked it up again, realizing that it had stopped, and that I had simply continued the rightward motion.

I said, under my breath, uh-oh, what’s this? Are you one of those?

Continuing to track it much more carefully, alert for any anomalies in its motion, I noted it stopped maybe two or three more times, while still in its wavy, weaving kind of wide zig-zag, still doing its decel/accel, and tracked it all the way across the sky until the roof of the house blocked any further view of it.

I stayed lying down, scanning the sky for another five minutes, without seeing any further moving objects, before getting up and going back inside to type this report.