Description

Captured with a Nikon D750 from the beach. Full frame, prosumer level camera. Not top of the line but better than most people own. Shot on a 24-85mm lens at 85mm. Considered medium telephoto range. I did not have time to switch to a longer range lens. I'm a semi-professional photographer (I've been paid for prints and shoots but it's mostly a hobby.) Here's the original, uncropped picture.
https://www.dropbox.com/s/u0n2pv8vm2xlxv4/dsc_2249%20%282%29.jpg?dl=0

The kid and I went and watched a rocket launch from the beach last year in NE Florida. About 3 minutes after the rocket had flown out of sight the kid (12 years old) said look, a plane. The plane turned out to be a white light that came from the SSE direction. It was moving fast but it was hard to gauge speed because I was unsure of the altitude it was at.

It was almost directly overhead when it stopped and reversed direction. It made a few turns at weird crazy, angles and varying speeds for maybe ten to fifteen seconds, long enough for me to dial in settings and get a decent picture. Only one turned out well (long exposure on a moving object at night is... difficult.) After that, it *flew over the horizon and as it passed over the clouds it lit them up with white light.* It was at that moment I realized it wasn't a drone of some kind.

I guess my first clue was it came barreling over the horizon from the direction of the beach town but I was willing to have doubts until it flew over the horizon at a high rate of speed after doing some crazy maneuvers. It's the wildest thing I've ever seen in the sky. There were at least ten planes visible and none of them came even close to the speed this thing displayed. It never made a sound either. I've been sitting on this for almost a year now but I've finally decided to share.