I was sitting on my friends porch at approximately 5pm smoking a cigarette. His porch is more of a room, with glass windows on either side and the door to my left. I was initially watching the crows as they flew by approximately a mile away when I noticed the object. I concentrated on the object because I did not see wings flap, as were the rest of the crows and birds. Having hundreds of possible night time sightings and 2 definite sightings inside the atmosphere, I considered it to be a possible UFO and was excited, but remained silent amongst my peers until I had more of an idea of what it was. I watched it for maybe a minute before I got up, went out the door and down the stairs to the front lawn. From there, I watched the black dot travel at approximately 30-40 mph NE at what I estimate to be a half mile altitude for another 30 seconds to 1 minute. At this point it stopped it's NE trajectory and gained altitude at a considerable, but not inconceivable, rate of speed. This could be visualized as a balloon floating into the sky, only much quicker. My friend had called from within the room we were smoking in and asked what in the hell I was doing. I explained and he, who has on multiple occasions witnessed these sort of events with me, quickly joined my side. Within 10 seconds it had hit the low part of the clouds and it stopped moving altogether. I strategically used this as a place marker to get an approximate distance of the object, which also helped correlate the objects size and speed. I was certain by now that this was a craft with intelligent control behind it, and most certainly was nothing that the public has been made aware of. Instantly I became ecstatic fore I had never had a sighting in broad day light and often verbalized how badly I had wanted to. It sat in position for what I recall to be 1-2 minutes and I was now ushering the rest of my peers to come join in this spectacular event. Within this time it had done some things which I must choose precise words to describe. First it started to sporadically, but very rapidly, disappear and reappear. I estimate it did this 7-13 times within 5 seconds. Maybe 20-30 seconds after this happened it started to do the same thing, only this time it was projecting an intense white light, not concentrated but more that of a flash light you are looking directly into. Once it started to move again it was approximately the same speed as before except it was moving S-SW, still right below the clouds. I watched it from here for maybe another minute before the reflection from the clouds no longer allowed me to keep my eyes open, let alone elevated upwards. I could not stop describing what it had been doing for more than a breath, I couldn't help myself but to repeat over and over. By the time I recovered and had gotten glasses and binoculars, the craft had completely disappeared or I simply could not find it in the sky.