Anyone know what this was?

[Rockimedes]

My room mate and I were outside around midnight and we saw an extremely bright flash in the sky, way brighter than Venus. After the flash died off we could still see something, it resembled a satellite, moving slowly in the same direction and getting dimmer with time. Then a few minutes later, another flare happened in nearly the same spot and it too faded slowly then disappeared. It happened a total of three times. It happened a week after the perseids, so I'm not sure if it was some left over debris from that or something else. Has any seen this before or know what I am talking about, it's been puzzling me for a week now!

 

[shijing]

Hi Rockimedes --

My room mate and I were outside around midnight and we saw an extremely bright flash in the sky, way brighter than Venus. After the flash died off we could still see something, it resembled a satellite, moving slowly in the same direction and getting dimmer with time. Then a few minutes later, another flare happened in nearly the same spot and it too faded slowly then disappeared. It happened a total of three times. It happened a week after the perseids, so I'm not sure if it was some left over debris from that or something else. Has any seen this before or know what I am talking about, it's been puzzling me for a week now!

I don't know what it was, but I saw something almost exactly like what you are describing this summer, on two different occasions, outside at the drive-in movie theater in my town. It lies underneath a flight path for the local air force base, but I had no reason to believe what I saw was a plane -- there was no sound, and no blinking lights which are usually associated with planes. What I saw was also noticeably larger than a satellite.

For what its worth, a couple days before July fourth, I also saw a trio of similar lights when I was out walking in my neighborhood after dark. These lights faded in and out (in slow intervals), but moved back and forth horizontally and appeared to be moving of their own volition (as opposed to merely falling through the atmosphere under the influence of gravity). These are the only times I am aware of that I have seen anything I would consider calling UFOs.