A large amber ball of light responding to spotlight.

I will finally write what we saw. My partner and I worked swing shifts most of our lives and would comute from Woodside, Ca. to Boulder Creek, Ca. every night for 20 years or so. Skyline Blvd is a road on the highest point of mountain range that divides the ocean from the bay area.  One can see both the ocean (Pescadaro beach [a few miles north of Santa Cruz, Ca.] to Halfmoon bay)and bay area (San Jose, Ca. to San Francisco on a clear night).
On our way home that morning on a beautiful clear nignt with the moon reflecting from the ocean and shining on the bay area, we saw a large amber ball of light rising from the ocean around Pescadero beach area about 15 miles from the top of the ridge (one can see the waves hit the beach) We were on Skyline Blvd around Palo Alto county. I told my partner to stop so we could observe this object.  He didn't want to, so I (as passanger) removed the car keys from ignition which made the car stop in a turn out with a clear view on both sides of the range.  This object came toward us about 200 yards away and appr. 100 feet above us and stopped.  Our Landcruiser had a spotlight on top of roof, so I signaled directly to this object "SOS" and this object would respond moving slowly up, down, sideways, diaganal, the return to it spot.  I repeated this signal many, many times and this large amber ball of light would respond the same way each time for about 15-30minutes.  Then all of a sudden it went straight up out of sight within a second leaving a com-trail.  Of course with no sound.
I have two more incidences which are very interesting around the same area if you are interested.
Source of report indicates that the date of the incident is approximate.  PD