sudden burst of brilliant yellow light

a friend and I were moving an old floor model Atwater-Kent radio from one apartment to another. it was midnight and we were on the side walk with the radio when all of a sudden we were bathed in a brilliant yellow glow that covered the whole apartment parking lot. We were so startled by the sudden burst of light that we dropped the radio on the sidewalk.We looked up to see a blinding yellow glow moving off into the distant sky. The sky reminded me of a black top road with a freshly painted yellow line down the middle as this light flew off into the night. Then the yellow hue we were standing in started to fade away as if someone were working a dimmer switch. This "thing" made no noise what so ever. When we plugged in the radio laterit never worked better.
Date is approximate.  PD