UFO hovers over Houston TX, fall 1973.

I was at Memorial Park in Houston TX in the evening during autumn 1973, along with my husband, and a group of men and their wives.  The men were playing tag football.  I was sitting in a lawn chair facing due south.  The game had not started and the men were warming up for the game, when I saw what I thought was an airplane flying from east to west in the night sky.  As my eyes tracked it, it suddenly came to a standstill.  I mentioned this to the lady sitting next to me.  She said she had binoculars in her car. She retrieved them, and handed them to me.  When I looked at the object through the binoculars, and discovered it was not just one light, but a string of lights in a horizontal position.  I did not attempt to count the number of them.
 As I  and others watched, the object appeared to began turning on its side gradually.  It changed, bit by bit, from a straight string of lights to an oval, and then ultimately to an full circle of lights.  Other people became interested and also watched this phenomenom.  It turned back into a horizontal string of lights, and then moved vertically.  I could see what appeared to be after-flares coming from each light.  The object remained there for approximately 45 minutes moving this way and that, and then suddenly ascended within a matter of a few seconds upward and to the west.
 I have prepared a rudimentary illustration with Adobe Photoshop to show how this object revolved, and yet remained in a stationary position over Houston.
 I made no report of this at that time.  There was a lot of debunking going on regarding UFOs and I did not care to get involved.  I know what we saw.  Only in the past year did I send a pencil sketch to MUFON.  I received no reply from them.  It has been many years since I watched this UFO in the night sky, but it still stands out clearly as if I had just seen it moments ago.  Other than my husband, I have no recollection of anyone else's name who had been a witness to this event so long ago.
Witness indicates that the date of the sighting is approximate.  PD