Glowing red sphere with three white lights on the bottom in the formation of a triangle...

My cousin and I were at a family function and were out in the backyard looking at a tree that had been hit by lightning about a week before. 
We noticed a glowing red ball that hovered in place above a field, we were about 1/2 mile away. It was a clear night and the sky was almost completely dark at the time. 
We didn't take our eyes off of it even though we wanted to go in and tell everyone to come see, we just couldn't pull ourselves away from looking at it. 
After a couple of minutes of it hanging motionless in the sky, it shot straight up in the air and disappeared. 
After it happened we decided not to say anything to our families that were inside because we didn't want to be made fun of, since none of them would have believed it.  So hard as it was, we kept it quiet. 
Then the next day at school, I overheard some of my classmates whispering together in a huddle about the same thing that I had seen.  So I chimed in about my account, and they told me that they had been practically under it (which made sense because my friend lived just across that field) and they said that it was a glowing red ball but they could see three white lights on the bottom that formed a triangle pattern. 
They also watched it for a while and it shot straight up in the sky, there were four of them that seen it including my friend's father.
I never seen anything like that before or since.
Witness indicates that date of the incident is approximate, elects to remain totally anonymous.  PD