First thought it was a police helicopter, it was so close and big and bright that it was hard to focus on it...

Then as I looked closer I saw it was glowing with an orange-reddish irregular undulating hue.

Hovering for awhile moving slowly then moving straight up.

Looked like it had an "aura" of some sort around it. When closer it reminded me of light spinning off of a choppers blade. except it was way too big for that.

Then it just kept getting further away up in the sky, higher than air traffic and it looked like Mars or Venus. Finally, it got so high and so small I simply couldn't see it anymore

No weather balloons were launched at this time and none in use here could produce so much light.

Perhaps it was an experimental project from someone's atmospheric research and they had some really powerful lamps they wanted to send up with the equipment.

Perhaps.

No contrail to chase though...

;-)

SDAI-Tech1