Reading here I can't help but think of the inventing craze that was so much a part of those days right after WWII. So many new ideas had worked out during the war, that people were willing to give almost any idea a shot. And the one or two man plan of the day was invent it, test it a few times, sell it.

What I'm leading up to here is that I think these could have been early attempts at large battle flares. Maybe even the brainchild of some pilot and his buddy. They couldn't very well test them on the ground, and if they gave them to the Army to test, they don't ever see a dime for their idea.

I think that we need to always factor in the human element when we view these events. A high flying plane, dropping some type of sparkling light on a parachute, is very likely to have caused at least some of these strange reports.

Others, like this one could have been a flare rigged to some altitude/pressure device to explode and dazzle the landscape with light.

In any event, I think it is prudent to look at what could have been an Earthly explanation, though these are, in the truest sense of the term, UFOs.