Sphere above the horizon, ejecting smaller spheres

The date is a best guess, the year is 1994.  I haven't really told many people about this, the two other's I have not seen in years and at the time of this event, we swore not to say anything to anyone.
I was 14 at the time, with 2 friends (the two were brothers) playing in the woods near our house, sledding, snowball fights..usual kid stuff.
 It was dark by the time we were ready to go home.  We decided to take a different route back since we were on the other side of the ravine from which we came in on. This route would take us through a farm field, to the back of small neighborhood. It was a clear night, the stars were visible, the moon was not out.  The ground was covered in a good foot of fresh snow.
We started trekking through the snow covered farm field, heading southward when we all stopped dead in our tracks.  Out in the distance well above the horizon was a glowing yellow sphere.  We stood there for 15 or 20 seconds, my first initial thought was it was an airplane with it's lights on, flying really low.  The only thing was, it wasn't moving, just sitting there like a really bright, REALLY big star.  
This is where things got really really weird.  The sphere started to "shoot" out smaller spheres towards the ground.  One would come out from the left, once it hit the horizon, it would disappear, about 5 seconds later, one came out from the right, hit the horizon and disappear.   3 smaller spheres off of each side, 6 in total.    My two friends were standing a few feet behind me, I turned around and the one quickly turned around and started running the other way.  I yelled at him to stop, his brother ran after him and tackled him.  We heard  coyotes start howling like n! othing I've ever heard before, living in rural Minnesota coyotes were no strangers to us but these howls sounded like they.  We then saw these coyotes off in the distance running from the farm field we were walking through, into the woods/ravine.
The sphere moved towards the horizon and slowly faded away.
Witness indicates that the date of the sighting is approximate.  PD