Sphere Lights up, goes out intermittently, silent, fast, came close, 5 minutes watching

My girlfriend and I were on the primary dunes in a sparsly populated area of the beach.  It was a clear starry night, comfortable temps.  I thought I'd seen a star go out and mentioned it.  As we watched,  it came back on, repeating this on a few seconds then off.    It approached to about 50 yards out in the gulf, dropped to the water,  raised back up,  came in to where the water (calm) met the shore.  Hovered about 30 feet away from us, 10 feet off the ground, silently. It was spherical and just smaller than a soccer ball.  We stood up,  I took one step to go look closer, it took off in an arc to the sky westward, must have covered 3 miles in a second or better.
Years later, I was contacted by my friend and I asked her to recount the story.
She still had the same story I had, except that as we stood. She wanted to run away.
Date may be approximate, although the witness does not indicate that fact.  PD