Orange/peach object in the southern sky just past dusk.I had asked my mother to step outside as I was explaining the alignment of the moon and two planets from the previous evening compared to the evening of 12-2-08. As we stood looking at the crescent moon and the two planets (which were located to the right of the moon, and some distance away from the moon) an object appeared to the left side of the moon. The time was about 17:18 and just past dusk. The object was an orange/peach color. It appeared quickly, as my mother stated, "What is that? It wasn’t there a second ago." It seemed to be ‘descending’ in a slight spiral but nearly straight line. It grew larger as if descending toward the earth, paused for a few seconds then began to ascend with a slight arc to its path. As it ‘ascended’ it grew smaller and faded from sight. It did not move as commonly know aircraft move. We observed no sounds, nor contrails. We did not see any flashing lights, it was of consistent coloring. I want to make it clear the object did not appear to be as far from earth as the moon, I am simply using the moon as a reference to the direction (southern) and angle we were looking.