I had just left a small winter solstice show at my local coffee shop and decided to go walk down by the bay before driving home. it was probably around 10:30 pm and dark with very low cloud coverage. i stood on some large boulders overlooking the water. after a few minutes i looked up and and saw a large, slow, low flying, silent bright white light move out from the clouds and then travel just beneath them over the bay maybe 300 or 400 feet away from me. i don't want to bog you down with geography, but the other side of the bay from where i was standing is maybe a mile and a half or two away, and this bright light had to have been close. it's elevation remained stayed the same, but it continued to move over the bay in a straight line until it stopped directly parallel to me. (i know it sounds totally whack, but it's what happened.) it brightened up and began to change back and forth between a bright white and orange. it sat there flashing in front of me for maybe 30 to 45 seconds before dimming down again to a solid, but still bright white, and headed back in a similar, but not quite the same direction it had come from. i watched it start to move over some buildings, and knowing the town well (because i grew up there and it's very small), was maybe a quarter of a mile away. it hovered there for a few moments before being obscured by clouds. i kept watch for another few minutes but that was the last i saw of it.