We saw some of those in the Seattle area last summer. I did a bunch of searching on the internet to see if they could be explained. Because they were visible for so long. One by one they came from the north at what looked like about 1000-3000 feet, then at about the same place each one would climb up until it disappeared.
What was interesting was that they moved like hot air balloons, except the light was too bright and continuous, and it flickered slightly - exactly like these do.
What were they? They are Chinese Sky Lanterns. Look ‘em up in youtube. They seemed to rise out of the atmosphere at the end because what was really going on was that each one, at roughly the same distance from the launch point, ran out of fuel. The flame reduced until it went out, looking as if it was going farther away.
Hush, you two. You’re going to spoil it.
We’ve see these, on the island of Kauai, before. Absolutely beautiful.
Bona fide UFOs do wild zig zags—stop, start, wild acceleration, then hover, sudden reversals in direction, sudden and super-quick changes in altitude, change colors, sometimes even change shapes etc. Many of them actually wobble as well (as though they were bobbing in an ocean).
It is very easy to distinguish between those and balloons, airplanes, chinese lanterns, etc.