When you're a teenager in a tourist town on the Gulf of Mexico, there's only one way to spend your summer nights: doing drugs & going to the beach. One such evening, back around high school, me & my friend Tall Paul had dropped some acid & decided to go stick our toes in the sand. A mutual friend, who was sober, drove us down. It was pretty late (2am or so) & our town was totally dead. No traffic, nothing. Tall Paul & I had started to come down from our trips by the time we reached the beach. He & our trip-sitter were sitting in the sand chatting while I waded ankle-deep into the water & stared at the stars. One star caught my eye; it was particularly bright, & as I stared it got brighter & brighter. Thinking that I was just experiencing some LSD-based weirdness, I called back to my friends. Something along the lines of, "Hey guys, is that a star? Or, like, a helicopter or something?" They joined me in the water to check it out. We were all kind of mesmerized by the star, which not only seemed more dazzling now, but also bigger & closer. It became clear that it was not a star, but the light of some kind of aircraft. It emerged out of the night sky & flew right over us. The thing was shaped kind of like a football -- an ellipse with pointed ends -- but much flatter. We could only see the bottom as it flew overhead, but it was perfectly smooth & made of a material that was akin to a mirror or very shiny silver. The light was attached to the front point of the football-shape, but didn't have the quality of any sort of light I have every seen. It's hard to put into words. Even up close, it was like looking at a star. Is it possible that the craft was just some kind of misidentified plane? A drone? A blimp? Maybe, but I don't think so. First of all, it was very, very close to the ground. It flew maybe 15 feet over our heads, moving smoothly & much, much more slowly than a plane would need to stay aloft. It was also completely silent. There was no engine noise at all, or if there was it was so quiet we couldn't hear it on a very calm night. It glided past us & off into the night. Me & my buddies freaked out. It seemed clear to all three of us that we had seem something deeply strange. We tried to record a audio description of what we had seen on our phones, but I unfortunately no longer had that phone. I was (& still am, to some extent) frustrated that my only paranormal experience will not be taken seriously because two out of three witnesses were under the influence of psychedelics. But our other friend was stone cold sober & swears to experiencing the same exact event as me & Tall Paul. If nothing else, I hope this encourages more people in Southwest Florida to share their stories. Nestled between the Gulf of Mexico & the Everglades, the region has a very eerie energy. Those of use whose families have lived in the area for generations know just how strange it is.