I was raking leaves out of my yard after dark and was carrying a load to dump in back. I am a meteorologist/atmospheric scientist so I tend to have my eyes to the sky and as I was pulling the tarp of leaves into our dark backyard I noticed what I thought was a spotlight reflecting light off of haze in the northeast sky. This "spotlight-like" motion only lasted for a maybe 5 seconds and it was getting closer & more visible. There were some thin clouds at high altitude that were possibly refracting the light from this object/objects and making it look like a fuzzy light. As it got closer, I could make out a V-shaped pattern now moving south and in a straight line. My brain, trying to make sense of what I was seeing, at first made me think that I was looking at a light illuminated flock of geese. But that notion only lasted a second as I realized I was looking at something at very high altitudes moving very fast. There were 5-7 star-like dots in a V-pattern holding tight and moving very fast to the south. From when I saw it nearly overhead to losing sight in the southern sky, it only took about 5 seconds to travel that distance. There was a thin cirrus cloud layer above 30,000' and this object was well above that. I am guessing it/they were over 150,000' in altitude. I have never seen anything like this before and I have previously not believed in UFOs, but this made the hair on my neck stand up and gave me chills down my spine.