On 17 November, 1978, I saw "apparitions" (for lack of a better expression) that lasted for approximately 10 hrs. It all started on a clear cool afternoon as I was hitchhiking east from Rock Springs Wyo. to Denver, Co. on Interstate 80. A couple of hours after I got a ride I noticed a point of light blinking due east at about 30 degrees, but I didn't really give it much thought and soon put it out of my mind. I figured it was the reflection of the sun on an aircraft or something. Things started to get strange when we turned south to go to Denver. The light turned as we turned and remained in front of us.At this the driver blinked his headlights on and off as if he was trying to signal whatever it was that we were looking at. Suddenly, it appeared to get much closer (about the size of a quarter at arms reach). It seemed to have a cylindrical body with a cone on top, but I couldn't be sure as it was dark. It had five luminous points on its perimeter. Each shot out what seemed to be rods of white light. I remember rolling down my window and thought that I could faintly hear a high-pitched whirring sound. This seemed to happen very fast. Then I am not sure what happened to the entity/object.It shot back into the eastern sky and hovered from where it had begun before we turned south. This time it seemed to occupy the space in the night sky where the star Sirius should have appeared. It glimmered and sparkled intensely. We watched it several minutes and just couldn't believe what we were witnessing. As we talked about it I glanced to my right at the moonlit mountain landscape. I noticed three to five purple spheres in the distance. I couldn't tell how far, maybe a half a mile or more, but they were about the size of a nickel at arms reach. They seemed to be floating slowly, effortlessly, almost bouncing, like honeybees from flower to flower. They were translucent and I recall that I could partly see the landscape behind them. They each had a smaller amber satellite that seemed to rotate, somewhat quickly and irregularly, around them. We watched these for sometime until we got to the Denver city limits a couple of hours later. I have had no such experience since. Also reported on NUFORC