Bell or thimble shaped object rises out of Guntersville Lake and follows pair into Huntsville.

Late one evening (between 9 and 10 PM) in the winter of 1988 (possibly February), I (a high school student) was sitting on a boat dock at Guntersville Lake with one other person (a high school student) when a large bell or thimble shaped object rose from the water about  a quarter of a mile from us.  It rose straight up (higher than the tree line) and stopped.
Too close for comfort, we got into our car and drove rapidly from the lake taking Hwy 72 through Scottsboro to Huntsville (a trip lasting approximately 35 minutes).  The object followed us just above the tree line rapidly moving from one side of the road to the other.  The object was bright enough to be seen through the street lights once we reached Huntsville and followed us on a twisting path through town.
We stopped at my house near Redstone Arsenal and gathered up a pair of binoculars and a rifle scope to look more closely at the object that was now hovering over the neighbor’s house.  We were joined by my father (a restaurant manager) and a neighbor (profession unknown), and we all watched the object for approximately ten minutes.  It was bell or thimble shaped with varying colored lights around the outside of the object in a diagonal line from the bottom to the top.  It rotated counter clockwise and was light in color.  After ten minutes or so, the object rose rapidly and sped off to the southeast.
I saw several strange luminous objects in the skies over Redstone Arsenal in the spring and summer that followed- often the same objects in the same general area several nights in a row--but none came close enough for me to distinguish their shapes.
Witness indicates that the date of the sighting is approximate.  PD