The Mysterious Golden Sphere

My mother related this experience to me today. I believe her because I've seen balls of light before.
This happened Friday, Nov. 10th, 2006 at about 5:30pm.
The air temperature was about 56 degrees fahrenheit and there was no wind.
She was outside with the dog at night because it was so nice and warm out. She lives out in the country and we have a field in the back of the cabin with a mowed path through it. All of the sudden all the dogs in the area, including hers, started barking frantically. She then saw a very round bright golden light (and she emphasized golden, she said it was definitely not yellow) coming towards her on the path. She thought at first this was a raccoon hunter with a big light, but very quickly, the golden sphere of light shot straight up 200 feet in the air!
She looked at it through the binoculars but all she could see was the light. All over the sky, all around the golden sphere of light, were spinning spirals of golden light. The big orb did a 90 degree turn and flew away silently in the northern sky. All the lights disappeared. I thought it may be interesting to add that last month, at about 5:45pm a short distance in the woods behind the cabin, I saw a small red sphere fly out of the brush beside me and stop mid-air in front of me for a few moments before floating away silently in a straight line towards the cabin.

There are ruins of a farmhouse, a root cellar, and 2 wells in the woods behind our field. The red sphere that I saw appeared about 10 feet from the ruins. I would sure like an explanation.