Boiling, back lighted clouds obscurred full moon. Then three light balls appeared less then 30 feet from me appearing as multishaft lucite stars with rods emanating from center 15 feet in diameter floating one foot above ground.I am a retired air traffic controller and I have an airline transport pilot license. I've been trained specifically to see and interpret correctly what I see in the sky and on radar. Technically speaking, people like me are the most credible of witnesses. Not that that will convince the people with their heads in the sand but for what it's worth, I saw three UFOs and they were, at their closest approach, no more than 20 feet (not less than 15 and not more than 25 feet) from me. I was parked in a tourist attraction parking lot in Ponce, Puerto Rico at a place called "El Vigia". There were at least 30 other people there with their friends listening to music from their car radios or portable radios. Some were drinking. I was not. It was April 9, 1990. I got to the parking lot right after dark. I watched the moon rise. It was a lovely night and I was enjoying the full moon. At about 9:00 P.M. the moon became obscured by clouds. Then the clouds began to boil just like in the movie cucoon. This thunder cell of clouds or whatever it was (it made no sound) began moving from east to west towrds the city of Ponce. I was somewhat worried but just kept standing outside my car and watching it move. It was lighted from inside with a white glow. I could here the gasps and oos and ahhhs from the people around the parking lot. After about 15 minutes of this two lights shot out of this cloud formation I estimated to be at about 6,000 feet maximum altitude at 2000 plus miles an hour and moved south, made a hairpin turn and went north and disappeared. Then I heard this poof sound and three 15 foot diameter light balls appeared in front of me at about 20 feet away (one poof sound for each ball), floated across the parking lot about 2 feet above the gound for about 3 minutes and disappeared with the same poof sound. These "light balls" as I call them looked like giant sea urchins with clear lucite rods extending fom the center in a star burst design. Another similar item is a fiber optic lamp with straight fibers bristling ! out of it. The rods all came from a compact center. They were basically all glowing with a white light and rotating slight lightly and lazily as they floated along.I observed that the black asphalt beneath the light balls was lit as the balls passed over. A couple of 4 year old children practically walked into the leading light ball. The children turned away towards there parents with their arms above their heads and ducking their heads as if something was bothering them (similar to what a child woud do if a bee was buzzing around him). They quickly got away from the light balls. I clearly saw each ball disappear with a poof sound. To someone who didn't know that stars are huge infernos in the sky such as the sun, would assume that these were stars. The boiling cloud slowed to a normal cumulus formation. It all happened in about 20 minutes. I left about 30 minutes later but spoke to nobody else there about what we had all seen because I didn't know anybody there. No one approached me either. It was all very pretty but I saw no purpose in it. Has anybody seen anything like this ?