A red ball of fire, watches us, then dives away.It was dark out already, and I can't quite recall the time of the incident as it was about 3 years ago. I was at my then girlfriends house, sitting on some steps in her backyard. She has a very large back yard which pretty much surrounds the entire house from all sides. We were sitting in the area to the left of the house, so the house was to our right. Directly in front of us was her drive way which curved from the street towards her house. I was looking up at the sky, as I like to do so many nights, to admire the stars, and as I looked to my right towards the house, I saw a red ball of fire which looked to be steady over the house. It was not a huge ball, but much larger than what stars look like, and much closer. At first glance I took it to be a flare as it had the resemblence of one. Its no movement also made me think of it as a flare as I know flares are known to stay in place in the air for a brief moment. So all this was not strange to me yet. Here is where the story gets a little weird, upon seeing it, I focused my attention on it. My girlfriend was sitting to my right, but had not seen the object yet. I called her attention to the object, and as she focused on it, at that exact moment, it seemed like the object became aware of me pointing it out to her. She saw it, but for a brief moment, because at that point the object streaked upwards towards the right and then dove down behind the house. Not saying it landed behind the house, but is shot downward behind the houses path of view making it no longer visible. I immediately realized that it was not a flare, because a flare would not have that sort of movement and speed after being in the air. It moved so fast that it literally left a streak of red behind it for a few brief seconds. This object seemed to have full control of its movements, and furthermore, seemed to be conscious of our presence, as if it were watching us. That incident freaked me out but also intrigued me as I have been interested in UFO's since a very early age. I definitely think what I saw was a UFO or some sort of surveillance device, used by who, I don't know. I have had other sightings, but less conclusive than this one. My uncle is also a big UFO buff and has experienced sightings. A flare, it definitely was not, something else, in my opinion it was.((NUFORC Note: Witness indicates that date of the incident is approximate. PD))