UFO: I was on the roof of a friends apartment with 5 other people. We all witnessed this event.

[Speck Tater]

23. I was standing on the balcony of my apartment in Mountain View CA in 1970 or 72

And I saw a brilliant red like rise up above the trees. I couldn't tell how far away it was because it was dark and there was no way to tell what size it was. The light was peculiar in that it appeared "speckled". Years later I learned that this was a phenomenon common to lasers (when I worked at a company that used a lot of them.) I was going to tell my wife about it, so I turned around to go back into the apartment when I saw a red spot on the wall of the building, about four feet away from me, and about a yard in diameter. In the center of the red spot was the shadow of my head and shoulders. The reason the light was so bright was that it was pointed right straight at me! I turned back to look at it and it zoomed away at high speed.

The next day the newspaper had a brief account of people reporting sightings of bright red spheres in and around the Mountain View area.