Big Bobbing red light

My husband and I had just come in from a long road trip and were trying to warm our house which sat in the center of 42 acres in an unpopulated area.  Something made me look out the window across the woods behind our home.  A very large, red light was erratically bobbing up and down above the treetops heading west.  I grew up in an Air Force family all over the world, and have ridden with my father in small aircraft since I was four.  I know what aircraft look like. 
This incredible red light took its time about flying and I called my husband to come look.  After it had gone, I was just stunned and could not go to sleep.  I kept checking out the windows for anything unusual.  Then, coming down a hill about 500 yards behind my home was a very bright white light. Looked like someone was running down the hill toward my house.  Of course I woke up my husband .....who said...its probably just a hunter.
A few days later we hiked to the back of our property to just look around.  We found 3 burned areas in a pasture.Each was exactly the same size and  about 12 feet across with a badly burned little pine tree at the edge of one circle. Two circles were right together with only about 4 feet between, but the other was north and about 10 feet from the two.  The grass did not grow there for many years. We would walk back there from time to time just to stare at the bare circles.
About a year after this happened I was reading in the newspaper an account of a UFO sighting and was amazed that it too had bobbed up and down in the sky.  I knew what I saw was odd, but had never really thought of it as a UFO.  How I wished for pictures of those burned circles through all these years.
Witness indicates that date is approximate.  PD