My Caribbean UFO sighting back in the early 1970's

1. spheroid (note: many night-time UFO reports are of so-called "orange balls of light" a/k/a OBOLs. They have been variably described as "luminous globe" or "glowing orb" or "sphere of light" or "ball of fire" and are typically orange/yellow or white in color, although sometimes red, green or blue. In recent decades and practically without exception in Europe, Ufologists and the Media immediately dismiss "OBOL" reports as either Chinese-lanterns or as the elusive and poorly understood "ball lightning" phenomenon. I've seen veteran Ufologists rush to explain away OBOLs as military-flares, fireball-meteors, Venus and even as ... the Moon, much to the dismay of reporting eye-witnesses I guess. However in section #9 about UFO illumination, I offer the idea that at least some "balls of light", particularly those executing controlled maneuvers like travelling one way and then making right-angle turns or U-turns, may be true UFOs. I hypothesize that the "ball of light" appearance may be a spherical shell of luminous ionized air around the UFO itself. The OBOL effect depends on a UFO's operating condition and the UFO's actual shape may not be spherical in each and every OBOL case. Warning: OBOLs should not be confused with the so-called "orbs" which is a term used these days to describe the typically circular artifacts that may occur unexpectedly in flash photography due to backscatter and are pretty common with modern digital cameras - see orb @ wiki)              I guess this is a weird way to start a post but back in 1973 on board  the USS Newport News CA-148 a heavy cruiser, I along with at least 6 people saw a "OBOL" near Puerto Rico in the Caribbean. We were on condition 3 watches an I  was manning the mk 25 mod 3 Radar in the back of the Sky IV gun director at the time an our Ltjg commanding our gun director brought it to my attention. It was executing controlled maneuvers off our port side an came to a complete stop ~1 mile from the ship. There was no sound or obvious means of propulsion an because we were at sea there was nothing close to it to gauge it size.It was roughly at 30 degrees off the horizon an had been visible for a number of minutes until it stopped.The object/UFO made several right angle turns before it stopped. From our position it was similar in size to the full moon about 1/2 degree diameter an similar in color to a harvest moon a yellow/orange which was featureless. The object was observed by 4 people in our gun director an 2 lookouts stationed below us. When we reported the sighting to CIC "combat information center" the Lcdr in charge told us to disregard the UFO it did not exist? Believe me if you saw this thing hanging out there you would have found it very hard to disregard such a strange sight. We requested permission to light off our radar but was told to stand down,I wanted to see if I could lock on it an get a good range to the UFO. After about 10 minutes the object was still floating out there and had not moved we again requested to light off the radar an were given permission to turn it on. Unfortunately when I started the radar it crapped out. This particular radar had about 320 vacuum tubes an one of them died on me,I jumped down 2 decks to the power supply room an found and  replaced  the defective tube but by the time I got back up to my radar unit the UFO had floated off. The director officer said it slowly moved off a distance then just took off or disappeared  really fast. It was not the moon or any type of flare or manmade craft that I have ever seen and because of the controlled movement an the way it moved slowly toward the ship with what appeared to be a control by some intelligence I have no idea how to explain this sighting. I know the 5 other men who saw it, an we were spooked a little by it, this object seemed to be fairly large an I was just so upset that my radar picked that moment to die on me. Those old radars needed to be tweeked a lot and were no way as stable and exact as modern day radars are. If I could have got a range to the object we would have had a lot more data. I became a believer that day something was out there an I could not just ignore it, it was very real an the first UFO I have seen and I understand how some people have faith in their beliefs. From that day till today I still believe that we are not alone.