Ball of light shining a cone of light on the beach.

My two friends and I were returning to college in Louisiana after working the summer in Washington state. I was driving along the coast highway at dust. Suddenly we all noticed a motionless hovering white ball of light, shining a cone of light on the beach. After approximately 10 seconds the ball of light shot off toward the horizon - west over the ocean - at an incredible speed. The cone of light remained, slowly becoming dimmer and assuming a "smokey" apearance while maintaining the cone shape. It gradually faded away. I do not know the time of the event, but it was dusk. It was a clear day and little if any clouds. The first impression (dictated by logic) was that it must be a helicopter with a searchlight, but try as we might, there just was no helicopter (or anything else) there - just a ball of light. The distance from us to the light is difficult to estimate, but in order to provide some context, I would guess it was between 70 and 100 yards away. The size of the ball of light is also difficult to gauge, again I would guestimate approximately 3 feet in diameter. The length of the cone of light was approximately 30 feet. We stopped at the next town (heading south), Gold Beach, Oregon, and reported to the police what we had seen. They told us that a lot of people had been reporting UFOs recently but what we saw was a meteor(!). With that, we returned to the car and continued on our journey.
Date of incident is approximate.  If, in fact, the 1) object was hovering for a period of time, and 2) it was visible for 30 seconds, or so, we doubt that it was a meteor.  PD