High altitude light moving E-W, stops, loiters, makes a 90 degree turn, and accellerates at lightening speed out of the atmosph

During the spring of 1982 I was camping with my girlfriend on Mount Palomar near the observatory in California.  It was a very clear night so we were able to see an incredible amount of stars that evening, it was really very beautiful.  Around 10:00 PM, I noticed a red light moving across the southern hemisphere at an attitude of about 11:00. The object appeared to be moving slow like an airplane from west to east, but its altitude was very high as if it was in the upper atmosphere somewhere in the neighborhood of at least 80,000 feet. At this altitude I imagine that its ground speed had to be tremendous, and it was probably pretty large if I could see it that far away.
 We watched the object move across the sky for about three to four minutes and then it simply stopped and loitered for five to ten seconds before it made a 90 degree right turn and departed at lightening speed out of the atmosphere. Even though the red light was probably the sun reflecting off of what ever it was, this was not a shooting star, they don’t leave the atmosphere once they enter it and this was not another planet, they don’t move like that.  I am retired military and somewhat of a UFO skeptic, but I am not aware of anything in our inventory that is capable of flying at such a high speed then come to a dead stop, loiter, and then make a sharp turn and accelerate out of our atmosphere in less than a second.  It just doesn’t exist.
 On one other occasion I made a similar observation during the early 1990s. I was on an at sea deployment with the Marines between Hawaii and the Philippines when I saw the object.  The Navy usually operates under what they call “darken ship” conditions at night so it gets very dark out there and you can see are the navigational lights. Because of this, you can see stars like you’ve never seen before under these conditions.  Anyway, I can’t remember all of the details, but I do remember that the events that occurred that evening were almost identical to the ones that occurred in 1982, which is why I have remembered them even after all of these years.   And yes, there were others with me when we sat what ever it was.
Source of report indicates that date of the event is approximate.  PD