1970's sighting of small UFO that hovered, maneuvered, split into two objects, then rejoined and flew off.This happened in 1974 or '75, when I was about 15 years old. It occured on a winter weekend, in January, in my home town of Pipestone, Minnesota; a small (5000 pop.) rural town in the southwestern part of the state. I was home alone as my parents were away for the weekend. Two school friends, brothers, who lived across the street had a couple of snowmobiles, and we spent the latter part of the afternoon riding their sleds in an undeveloped area on the south edge of town, a few blocks from where we lived. Late afternoon, almost dusk, we went back home. I wandered out into the street between our houses while I was waiting for them to put their sleds away in their garage. I was just sort of looking around, and noticed a lighted object in the sky approaching from the southwest, roughly from the direction of the field in which we had been snowmobiling. It appeared to be a single object with two lights, one red and one white. I believe one of the lights was blinking, but I can't remember now which color it was. I assumed at this point that it was a small private plane, as the town had a small municipal airport and it wasn't unusual to see small single-prop planes in the area. The object continued to approach until it was directly overhead, then turned east flying directly over the street I was standing on. It moved a short distance straight east, maybe a block or two, then stopped and hovered. The object appeared to me only as two glowing globes of light, red and white, stuck together like two beads or marbles that are touching (they did appear to have dimension, i.e. the glowing lights were definitely spherical, not just point sources of light). I saw no other structure, so I don't have a good reference for determining the size of the object - however I should note that although it was right about dusk, there was still some daylight, and had it been a small plane or helicopter I would surely have seen the structure (there were no helicopters in town anyway). As to height, based on how it later flew away (below), it seems the height was modest as the object disappeared below a nearby tree line before travelling very far, so I would guess it was roughly a few hundred feet - no more than 1000 - off the ground. If this is true, then the object was not very large - perhaps the size of a car or truck. Anyway, after hovering for perhaps 10 - 20 seconds, the object moved directly back along the way it had come, straight back west over the street until it was directly overhead, and then it stopped & hovered again. It did not turn or maneuver like an airplane would have to, it had simply moved straight backward along its original line of flight after hovering. At this point I was almost in shock at what I was seeing, and just stood there staring at it. If one of the lights had been blinking earlier as it approached, neither one was now - both lights were glowing steadily. It hovered directly overhead for another 10-20 seconds, then the two lights separated and moved apart. One light moved north a short distance, the other moved south a short distance, and it seemed that there was a thin glowing filament connecting the two. The filament seemed to gradually fade away until I could no longer see anything connecting the lights. (I suppose the filament could have been an afterimage in my eyes created by the movement of the lights, but it didn't seem to me that the lights were so bright as to have had that effect - but maybe... The lights were not bright like a spotlight, more of a strong but soft glow.) The apparent separation between them was probably not much more than the apparent distance between my hands if I hold my arms straight up overhead. The lights stopped & hovered in this position, separated from each other, for another 10-20 second interval, then moved back together and "rejoined". After another short interval just hanging there hovering straight above me, the recombined object moved slowly away to the southeast. At no time during all of this did the object make any noise at all - it was totally silent. Once it started moving away I kind of "snapped out" of the almost-trance I had been in while watching it, realized that someone else should see this too, and yelled for my friends to come see. (I don't mean to imply that the object had directly affected me by using the word "trance", but while watching it I was completely focused-in on what I was seeing & oblivious to all else, could hardly believe what I was seeing, and it did not occur to me to call to my friends until it started moving away.) One of my friends came to see what the fuss was about, but by the time he got there the object was some distance away and all he saw was a moving light in the sky, which he took to be a small plane. The object continued to move away until it drifted below the tops of the trees on the next city block in the line of sight, and we lost sight of it - I would guess it might have been a half mile away at that point. As far as I know, no one else in town reported anything strange that day.((NUFORC Note: Witness indicates that date of sighting is approximate. PD))