A red and orange ball of light above the trees.

A single orange and red ball in the sky was seen by two other friends, my brother and me, while walking up the road returning from fishing in the evening.  It appeared to be about the same brilliance and color of a road flare, producing a consistent discharge of flickering light.  
The thing just sort rose up from behind the trees or maybe off the horizon but it seemed close (approx 100 meters).  It was silent and kind of danced around in a slight ‘zig zag’ pattern bobbing up and down to the right before changing direction left, then leveling to a straight line and blinking out.  It was at what seemed about tree top level in altitude but it was really hard to determine.  It was strange looking at it.  Judging the true distance and altitude was kind of tough because it looked unreal, literally, like ionized gas, or a hologram.  
I don’t suppose this is relevant but we were all engaged in very a heated debate discussing the possibility of intelligent life originating elsewhere and the chances of its traveling here, two on one side, one taking a more neutral stance and one the opposite, shouting religious and scientific contentions to support one or rebut the other.  At least one other witness can corroborate and the other two probably would if they could be located; although one was stating disbelief in the whole UFO phenomenon at the time of the encounter.  Despite that strange irony I to this day state, that the object remains simply unidentified.
Witness indicates that the date of the sighting is approximate.  PD