Not to play devil's advocate here, but it is a fact that the atmosphere filters and distorts starlight, thereby creating all kinds of effects, all the way from flickering over morphing up to a prism-like breakup of white light into different colors.
When looking for the truth, one must always first rule out all possible factors that could influence one's observation or analysis of any given phenomenon. And it is that which remains and which still appears anomalous, which is then interesting enough to examine.
Orbs are real, and non-terrestrial ships are real — as well as terrestrial ships based upon reverse-engineered extraterrestrial technology — but not every flickering or colorful light in the sky is a ship, an orb, or some sort of portal.
Occam's razor and all that.