Chinese lanters don't form into straight lines or formations, you know...they don't 'all meet up in a certain place' even if they're let off into the sky at the same time.

One of the truly amazing thing with Chinese Lanterns is that they follow the winds in formations. Even in pairs they're an impressive sight, moving with a very particular purpose, altering speeds and ascending in perfect co-ordination and appearing to meet up in one place, depending on your point of view. Like I say, we watched a squadron of maybe 8 of them last night over Fleetwood and the effect was quite mesmerising but then again were used to seeing them - some people still report them as UFOs, which on a subjective level of course they are, until you know what they are. Nothing you've said here suggests otherwise.

UFOlore operates as part wild-fire folklore and part religious orthodoxy. I've been fascinated with it since childhood (likewise Ghostlore, Christianlore, Paganlore, Fairylore Green Man-lore etc. etc.) but have yet to be convinced that there's any basis to any of it other than the human need to believe. In the end it all comes down to subjective experience on the one hand (which is always mundane) and objective interpretation of that experience on the other - which is where the folklore kicks in. On QI the other night it was asked how is it that whenever anyone draws an alien, they invariably draw the classic Grey? Do Greys actually exist? Or is it because they are a folkloric figment of our collective cultural imaginations? If human history tells us anything it's that we have an amazing capacity for making stuff up & convining ourselves it is real. There are no flying saucers*, just random lights in the sky becoming figments of our collective imaginations, and all the more fascinating because of it.

* Not yet anyway, but if they ever did get here we'll know about it, for better or (more likely) for worse. Meanwhile - keep watching the skies!