I was on my way home tonight at about 9:15 Central time. I saw what appeared to be a round ball of fire hovering in the sky above the Louis Joliet Mall here in Joliet, IL.I was about a block away from the mall. At first, I thought it might be a helicopter, but I've never seen one with a light that large or that color.It was glowing and red or red-orange in color with some yellow streaks in it. It literally looked like someone picked up a flame and somehow enclosed it in a globe. It looked like it was at about the height that a helicopter would fly but did not appear to be moving. The mall parking lot has large lights on tall poles and this was much larger than the lights and seemed to be almost perfectly round.I pulled off into my subdivision which has a lot of trees and drove slowly down the street and could see it on and off between the trees and seemed to be in a stationary position. I stopped once to look at it. It didn't move and I rolled down the windows to listen for sounds of a airplane or helicopter. I heard nothing. I drove further up the street and lost it momentarily because of a large group of trees and then stopped at a large clearing and had an open view of the sky to the north. Nothing was in sight. I drove a block back to the south to a school parking lot so I could see in all directions and nothing was in sight. The thing had completely disappeared in a matter of about 20 seconds.I then drove to the mall parking lot to get another open view of the sky but it was gone.I really couldn't believe what I was seeing and kept staring at it and trying to talk myself out of the possibility that it was a UFO. After I was convinced that it had disappeared and wasn't going to show up again, I texted my grandson. Then I called my daughter and son-in-law and described it to them. I then texted my son because I wasn't sure he was still awake. He called me almost immediately to get the details.I've never seen anything like this and have never heard of any UFO sightings that fit this description but I'm convinced that this was not any kind of an airplane or helicopter. I'm a retired educator and I think I'm pretty observant. This is the second time I've seen a possible UFO but the first time was a very quick event and it was gone almost immediately. It was in Minnesota and 4 of us witnessed it. This event was spectacular. I don't know how frequently such sightings occur near Joliet. I would think that others in the area may have seen it as well.