What are these freaky lights in my woods?

I live in suburban northern maryland and I have woods in the back of my house. Ok so I've seen these strange, flashing, white lights in the woods several times now. They are always near the edge of the woods. The freakiest thing about it is that the lights move around. One second one blinks near the ground and then another one blinks near the top of a tree. They resemble fireflies, except it can't be fireflies because these blinking whatevers are much brighter, they happen only after dark, and they are not that neon color. But the way they move and flash resembles lighting bugs. They also kind of look like the lights of an airplane tower, but they can't be because A: They are right at the edge of the woods, B: they blink with no pattern, and C: there is an airplane tower visible from my house and they really look nothing alike. Everyone in my house has seen it and so has my neighbor, so naturally this is kind of scaring the shiitake mushrooms out of me and has inspired several theories (my dad thinks it's ghosts from the civil war). I'm hoping someone has a reasonable (I hope non-frightening) explanation before my dad calls ghost hunters.

um, I don't want to scare you. but you wanna make sure it's not flashlights. little LED things strapped onto people. you know. crazy stuff happens, it's rare but sometimes it's out there. I would get a reliable security system, a big dog or several, and a gun or something. when you go to sleep spread wire hangers out in the hallway outside your bedroom, so they would clank and clatter and make people trip. you know, just in case. i mean living right outside the forest is dangerous anyway. you want to be careful.

other than that, idk. good luck.

Rotting forest material turns to what is known as 'marsh gas' or Methane.  Methane when any kind of light is placed on it, reflects such light.  The full moon acts on marsh gas and can give colors ranging from blue to hues of green and red to white.  Some are mixed and actually quite pretty.  They appear to dance, move around in different shapes and often fool us and others into believing we saw an apparition.  We have to be especially careful around woods, rivers, swamps, and landfills.

These are 'orbs' which have a paranormal meaning but everyone disagrees as to whether they are spirits or balls of energy . There is a lot of info online re orbs. the coast to coast am website has info because they talk about the orbs often or just do a search on google. I just searched the word 'orbs' on google and there were some cool pictures and stories about spirit orbs. Look at the pics and see if the orbs resemble the ones in your woods.

I think you and your dad need to go out there and find out what they are - and when you get out there and discover he true cause you can tease your dad for having such a fanciful idea.