ANd just as likely as anyone else to be confused by aircraft flares they've never seen before.
It's hard to confuse a giant metalic object with a flare - the guy in the link above saw this during the daylight, was right below it and couldn't see the edges.
Looked down then looked up again never took his eyes off it and it went from being over his head to being a mile away. Also, this guy is a welder and looked at this thing through his rifle scope and couldn't see any seams, rivets, welding etc.... he said it looked like it was molded out of one piece. All in all VERY weird and totally unconventional. I think most likely this guy was being very honest and accurate in his descriptions.
Also, you'd think if the military had flares up that night or a bunch of planes then they could have handled the PR a LOT better.
Something doesn't add up - IMO