I noticed out of the airplane window while flying from NC to Los Angeles approx. 6:30pm pt until around 6:45pm pt a very unusual light off to the north side of the airplane at almost the same altitude as us. I don’t know what altitude we were flying but this object was even with us. I saw it out in the distance in front of us and pointed it out to my Dad who was beside me and the passenger behind me heard me talking about it and had been watching it also. It was a very bright light in an upside down teardrop shape that appeared to have a hole in the center. I first thought it was an approaching airplane that may have been their bright headlights but as we got closer to it and began to pass it, I observed it didn’t move from the hovering area. We were 1 ½ hrs from Los Angeles so I am not exactly sure where we were but I’m guessing over NM maybe. As we passed the object, it began to glow orange with still what looked like a dark hole in the center. Shortly after passing it, it began to shrink into a white ball very rapidly. Either flying away very fast or disintegrating, who knows but it vanished very quickly but while approaching it, it lasted for at least 15 minutes or longer and then as we passed it, it quickly disappeared. At one point it appeared to have some multi colored lights flashing around the shape but was hard to distinguish with the extreme bright white light. But as the light turned to an orange glow, which was very bright also, the multi colored lights seem to go away. It looked like an upside down hot air balloon on fire or glowing. As we passed it, the object didn’t seem to move much but did appear to be hovering a little with a little movement up and down. But it did NOT fade away in the same appearance as when we approached it. It turned into a ball shape white light and shrunk down until it was gone in very little time.