White and red lit object floating back and forth and hovering over Virginia mountains

Sitting on our back porch we can see NW across the Blue Ridge mountains. It was sunset and there were dark clouds. We usually can see planes or even rarely comets, but there was a red light flying eastward, but then stopped. Turned white then red several times, and jets do not stop, change directions and hover. It also went higher and then circled back and forth about two times, then it just disappeared. I could no longer see it. I told my wife it was a drone, but she thought it was too far away, since it seemed to go in and out of that dark cloud ( the light would come and go as if it was going through the cloud).