Possible causes
Given only the information I'm reading here--and this is the only story I've seen on this--the phenomenon seems to have been seen only in a certain locality. This might indicate something at a high altitude in the atmosphere, not far out in space. The latter would have been seen across a much wider area.
It's possible an exploding meteor might generate a cloud of dust or gas that would be illuminated if some of the material was ionized. Meteors sometimes leave glowing trails that can persist for some time. 3 and 4 AM seems to be a bit early for something in the atmosphere to be illuminated by sunlight, even at very high altitude, but I'm not sure of that.