Saw object moving in sky that had appearance of a satellite, but didn't move or act like a satellite does.
I was serving in the Army in Viet Nam in 1967 and was in the field at Dakto attached to the 4th Infantry Division providing field radio relay and carrier support with the 167 Signal Company. In all of these years, I have never reported this event nor even told many people about it. I am retired now, but had a long career in public service and can be vouched for by many for being a conservative, level headed and highly credible individual.
I stepped out of the shower (to the outdoors as the shower was simply a wood frame with a 55 gal drum on top filled with water and a spigit to release it) late in the evening so it was dark (almost no ambient light in the Viet Nam boondocks)and the night sky visible with no cloud cover. The Viet Nam night sky is almost devoid of stars, except a few scattered along northern horizon and the moon was either not out or not bright. In that type of setting I always look up at the sky as I do anywhere I have a good view of the sky. I am a habitual sky watcher, but not in any amateur astronomer sense, just like to look at the stars, the Milky Way (when camping in U.S.) and watching for satellites. When I looked up, all there was in the sky was an object that was about 40 degrees above the horizon, at about 2:00 o'clock as I stood, I think facing north west. The object looked the way a satellite looks in the night sky in terms of size, shape and refected light, but that is not what it was. Rather than moving in a straight line (although satellites can look a little bit wobbly at times, which this did not)it was moving in a sharp sig-zag pattern, while at the same time moving forward at a speed much slower that a satellite moves across the sky. The sig-zag movement was very sharp and precise in the distance it moved right to left and in the angle it moved forward with each sig and zag. This movement was not erratic in any sense of the word nor was the object wandering in any way. Above for "flight path" I put both "straight line" and "directional change" because although it sig-zaged (very precisly)its forward movement was a straight line if plotted along its axis points. I watched with utter dumbfounded amazement as the object moved across the sky in its zig-zag but forward moving pattern for probably ten to fifteen minutes. During that time, the object's forward progress across the sky had moved it from about 2:00 o'clock when I spotted it to about my 11:30 to 12:00 o'clock as I was facing. In this amount of time a satellite would have moved all of the way across the sky and out of sight (in much less time than this). This object's forward progress was much slower that a satellite, even though its back and forth movements were very quick. As the object got to the point in the sky I described as about my 11:30 to 12:00 o'clock (and as I described above it was probably at about 70 degrees), it suddenly stopped and then shot straight up in the sky at an amazingly rapid speed until it just dissapeared. I was dumb struck at what I had witnessed and walked to my tent in wonderment. I new I had seen something not from this world, but have pretty well kept it to myself all these years until now.
This is as true and accurate statement as to what I witnessed as I can relate, but it is still as vivid in mind as when it happened. I hope someone will respond as what is thought about what I described. Above, I didn't check the box about being kept anonymous. I basically don't care one way or the other. Do as you see fit.
Thanks,
jlh