Bright stars-like objects suddenly appear and them dim...bright star-like objects moving fast and then disappearLast Spring, 2004, my daughter and I were sitting out on our deck. It was a beautiful black night and the stars were bright. I looked up and saw an extremely large bright star and told my daughter that I had never seen a star there before and especially that bright...about the time that my daughter looked to see it, the brilliant light seemed as if a dimmer was turning it off. I kept thinking about that event.I did not sit outside most of the summer because of the heat, but then we started having nice nights in September so I would sit out and talk on the phone or just look at the wonderful stars. We live on a mountain ridge and can see the lights of town below to the right, but to the left and straight ahead are mountains and forest.I never expected to see another event like I had in the Spring, but my eyes flew open when I saw not only one bright star but five popping bright in a flame stitch pattern right below the handle of the big dipper. They popped one right after the other then seemed to dim after a couple of seconds. Two airforce jets had just flown by low in the sky, they seemed to be circling over and over again and I know that they do practice around this area...in fact, there were lots of aircraft in the sky that night...I thought that this was strange. Two nights later I saw two bright pops, then they dimmed as the others had. Then I looked over and I saw a single glow from afar and it seemed to last for several seconds...I remember thinking...what's this, it's staying bright for so long? The same night I saw a regular looking bright star moving pretty fast, low in the sky. I watched it for several seconds. It was traveling from North to South...I was looking for blinking lights of some sort, like on an aircraft, but there were none...just the bright star moving at a fast speed, then it just disappeared! About three weeks later I saw exactly the same event, the fast moving star except it was moving from West to East.All of these sightings were fairly low in the sky.I asked my son-in-law if anyone from his work had seen anything like this and he said that they hadn't mentioned it, but he said that a few years ago that he, a doctor friend and some others had witnessed some bright lights over a scout camp. I asked him what he thought it was and he said that it was a mystery.I am thinking surely someone else has seen such. Here I am, out on my deck just once in a while...what is happening when I am not out here??