Bright balls hovering in the sky, what are they?

[Of Mike and Men]

A couple of nights ago, me and my fiancee were driving through the country and we saw something that looked like this:

http://www.gufob.com/assets/lights-lincolnshire-uk.jpg

Now, I doubt the reliability of that site, but what we saw looked identical to that picture. The balls were at least a mile away and several hundred feet off the ground. They looked like fireflies, but they didn't blink, they weren't moving ("hovering"), and due to the distance, I doubt they were fireflies because of their size. This happened around 9 PM, so it was relatively dark, and was in an open field. My initial thought was they were balloons, but there wasn't enough light to give them that kind of glow. Plus, as I said, they didn't move.

Any ideas?

[Kate*]

My best guess would be a meteor shower that was far enough away that it didn't look like they were moving or some form of "space junk" illuminated by the sun somehow.

[Dont3verLooseHope]

they look like Chinese lanterns ..

[bitesize]

Chinese lanterns?? They can be creepy to see if you don't know what they are.

[dr2005]

That looks like Chinese lanterns to me too - they will have been moving but only at the prevalent wind speed at the time so it would have looked as if they weren't. Anything coming through the atmosphere would be a lot brighter than that thanks to the extreme heat generated.

[Of Mike and Men]

I believe they are Chinese Lanterns. I drove by a place that had a sign up selling "Sky Lanterns." It's the only rational explanation I can think of. I just found it odd that they weren't moving. Though, now that I think about it, I don't recall what the wind speed was like on this particular night. If I remember correctly, though, it was windy. In fact, I believe a storm was passing through, but I could be wrong.

[Nostalgia]

They are just sky lanterns. Often mistaken for UFO's I have also mistaken these for UFO's before.