erratically flying object seen at night on beach in Southern California

My friend and I were walking on the beach late one night.  It was extremely windy with lots of sand and beach debris (newspapers, trash, palm fronds) blowing above and around us.  The wind was howling and loud.
At one point I notice an object above me.  I initially thought it was a large brown bag caught by the wind but my depth perception told me it was much larger and higher up in the sky.  It moved in a rapid and erratic manner in a barely discernible direction.  My friend and I watched it for a few minutes trying to figure out what we were seeing.
It appeared to be a light brown color (like a paper bag),  rectangular in shape with four soft edges like a rectangular box but it had no hard surfaces or angles, everything was soft like an object that has been inflated with the surfaces puffing outwards.  It moved very quickly zig-zagging in every direction, up and down at all angles yet was moving in a single direction.  It was impossible to hear any noice as the wind was so loud.
After a few minutes of watching the object it suddenly lit up from its interior,  the entire object a bright yellowish- white glowing light.  In that same instant it suddenly stopped moving and, faster than we could visually register, it went straight into space and disappeared.  I’ll repeat again,  it stopped its chaotic movements, froze in place, lit up and instantly ascended in a straight line into the dark sky above us.
Up until that point we had no idea what we were seeing, Once it lit up we realized it was not our eyes playing tricks on us with the wind and blowing debris but some sort of technological object.
Both my friend and I were college students at the time attending CSULB.