My self, my wife and some family in law were standing on a fishing dock at night facing north east looking into the sky star gazing. we were having a discussion about not seeing any planes or airliner jets while star gazing. we were discussing how clear the night sky was and how well we could observe stars and the milky way. some one observed a light approaching behind us to the south west.. and commented that it must be a plane. we all turned around and began observing the object. when we first observed the object we thought it might be a plane or low flying helicopter. the object was a single ball of yellow light flying about twice the height of the tree tops, which i would guess was between 200 to 300 ft. above the ground. it made no sound at all. no outline of a flying craft could not be discerned in conjunction with the light. because the light was so bright it was hard to tell just how large it was, i would say the size of an automobile. it approached very slow and was very bright. we could see the light through the trees before it was in the open. at this point it was closest to us, about 500 feet away but at an altitude of 200ft above ground. it was very bright at this time, my first thought was that it was a helicopter with a search light, because of its altitude and the nature of its approach, but was completely silent. it’s movement was very slow maybe 5 to 10 miles an hour. the light source did not cast any light, it was just a yellow fuzzy, dull ball of light but yet very bright and large. it began moving to our east, there was a lake to our north west and a small drainage to our east that went to the east about 100 yards. the object moved into that clearing to the east and was now about 700-800 yards away basically hooking around the perimeter of the lake so we had a good view of it now as no trees obscured it. it’s movement was very strange, and not like any known aircraft i have seen, it was moving north east, from our right to our left. at times it appeared to come to a stop or slow down to an almost stop, then start moving again in a very slow path. it maintained its altitude through out, and was making its way to the north east away from us. we observed it for maybe 5 minutes or more, everyone was asking what it was, i started saying that it must be a ufo because it’s observation was so strange. someone commented that it has to be a plane or helicopter, at that time a airliner did fly over very high, and we were able to observe its iconic light pattern on its wings as well as its consistent flight pattern. i made a comment that the the airliner and our unknown craft looked very different in its lights and flight path. i was very excited by seeing the object, and was curious to watch it, i didn’t want to take my eyes off of it. other people seemed very afraid and disturbed by seeing it. some people did not want to discuss it again afterwards. no one ever agreed that they thought it was a ufo, just seemed like they wanted to forget it happened. we continued to observe it, until at one moment it dimmed out and was gone. this dimming was very much that, the light, this ball of light dimmed until it was no longer observable. the dimming happened in about one second from its original bright yellowish white color, to a very low light and then it was gone. it was kind of like someone turning off a slow reacting incandescent light bulb.