the event happened while i was living in a small converted garage with a friend. i was backpacking around australia. there was no glazing in the property (tropical climate), only mosquito screens on window openings throughout. the main entrance was an existing garage door, therefore large and facing the road which was about 20m away. this opening was netted also and had a wooden frame with a normal door size opening to enter,within it. opposite this opening, against the far wall, was my single bed. it had a window (netted) over the bedhead facing the other direction. behind the house was forested swampland with no properties. on the other side of the road was a forested mountain; mount mackay national park and as such there were also no properties in the view from the entrance. this mountain was regarded by me as somewhere between a hill and a mountain. it is completely undeveloped with dense and tropical rainforest cover. on the evening in question, i got into bed to go to sleep. it was probably around 9pm to 10pm and dark as sunset was around 6pm. my friend had also retired for the evening. all lights were off and it was totally dark. there were no streetlights or any man made lighting to be seen in this location at the time (quite remote). i remember it being a clear evening, no wind and in the mid 20's degrees celsius, i estimate. normally i sleep without problems of any sort but after what must have been an hour of tossing and turning in bed, i found myself asking the question, "what's wrong?" it soon dawned on me that the reason i could not fall asleep was because i was afraid! i remember distinctly feeling that this realisation startled me into full alertness. i realised that i had the distinct feeling of being watched! i immediately sat up in bed and peered through the mosquito mesh through the window behind me. as it is low lying wooded swampland in that direction, i couldn't see a thing, there was nothing but total blackness. after reassuring myself that i was being "silly" i turned back and as i was lying down again looked out of the entrance/ garage door opening opposite and i could clearly see mount mackay, silhouetted against the night sky. it was really rather bright in this direction. i saw a lone star above the mountain and to the right and thought, "wow, that's a bright star!" then it dawned on me that it was way too bright to be a star. it was illuminating the hillside forest and i estimate that it had a similar intensity to a full moon. it was however smaller than a full moon. looking back, its actual size was difficult to gauge. as i said, it was like a very bright and very large star. it was close to the ground, a few hundred meters maybe, again it's hard to give a good estimate for something without features or sound. then i remember that i said to myself, "that's not a star, that's a u.F..." to my astonishment, and before i could finish the sentence, the object immediately moved to the left and down, in the path that i would describe like if you roll a coin off of a table, a parabolic arched path maybe?!It did not seem to accelerate but moved from a standstill and kept a constant speed. the timing of my realisation and its starting to move out of sight was the most alarming thing about it. to this day i am convinced this was not a coincidence, but rather it had been monitoring me and my thoughts. that may sound like paranoia. regardless, i genuinely believe this fact, and given the very real fear i had experienced beforehand, point logically to the possibility of this. the object disappeared behind the ridge of the mountain which i estimate to be 1 or 2 km away. i took about 1 second to move from a standstill to being out of sight. i looked for just a few seconds waiting for it to reappear but it didn't. i then went to sleep, without any problem, the feeling of being watched had gone! looking back, i am surprised i did not question it; wait longer for it to reappear; search its possible landing site the next day, etc. later that year, while picking grapes as seasonal work, i went to the library and found a book on ufo sightings in australia. i read it and it discussed finding swamp-weed cicles (like crop circles) in the swamps around the tully area! tully, queensland was approx 5km from the location of this incident. it may have been the book; alien honeycomb: the first solid evidence of ufos by john pinkney and leonard ryzman as i read this book around that time in australia, though not 100% certain. i remember this passing explanation in the book for reasons obvious. this is not the only ufo sighting i have had, but i think it was an encounter of the "second kind" and as such, felt it worth documenting for research purposes. i hope it is of some use. i have attempted to make a photo-montage rendering using google earth showing the exact location, and it is attached. this is a very close approximation of what i experienced showing the objects position before it moved. thanks! ds