spherical ball of light about 2 ft in diameter and 20 yards away, interacting with me through movement

I felt a bizzare desire keeping me awake, that I had to walk to get up to go look out of a particular window on the other side of the house.  After fighting the urge to do so, I gave up, and got up to go take a look.  Outside the window, there was a spherical ball of light--about 1.5 to 2 ft in diameter, acting in a way that can only be described as conscious.  It was about 20 yards away from me; it was rising and disappearing into the sky, and falling gracefully back down in an arc so that I can only see it through the tall grass.  It spiraled in circles and it bounced up and down, drawing a wave with its movement.  I felt that it was conscious of my audience and that it was acting this way, strangely enough, for me: that it was playing and dancing around to make me feel that the interaction was a friendly one.  I grew frightened of the notion that it knew I was watching, and returned to my room, resolved to shut my eyes and not to open them again until morning.  In telling my grandmother this story in the morning, she got a strange look in her eye: she told me that there had been reports about 50 years back of children aged 12-14 being approached by a spherical ball of light, similar in description to what I saw, as they were walking in the neighboring woods.
Source of report indicates that the date of the sighting is approximate.  PD