At approximately 9:00 pm on July 4, 2014, I was on my balcony (top floor) facing NW, looking at the ground lights of north central Tucson, facing the Catalina Mountains which were several miles away. The view is unobstructed. The mountains raise several thousand feet above the valley floor. It was a cloudy night with clouds above the mountains.As I looked out I saw, against the mid-range to top of the mountains, a dim flash of light. It reminded me of the blinking of fireflies I saw in my childhood. Intermittently there would be another - a very dim blink on and off, so fast it was like I didn't actually see it but was aware I had just seen it. Then I saw one or two streak across the mountain range, so quickly that it left a streaking trail across the panoramic view I was looking at. My view encompasses about 5 miles from east to west (and vice versa) looking north.Then across the entire range, almost simultaneously, multiple flashes of bright blue/white lights flashed on and off across the entire range of mountains, at different heights. I approximate perhaps 40 to 50 at once - it was like a light show of stars. Intermittently this would occur again, sometimes confined to a smaller area, sometimes across the entire panorama. Lights also continued, intermittently, to streak from one end to the other, in what seemed like a second or two, leaving a trail of light as they did.I had never seen anything like this and I called my wife to come out to look. For a while nothing occurred and them it would begin again. We both watched this for about 25-30 minutes.At times the lights flashed on all across the mountains for 2-3 seconds before before extinguishing. Most times it seemed shorter than that. All of this seemed to occur randomly, rather than regularly as a time sequence.Several times there were concurrent or singular streaking of two lights in tandem.Some lights appeared to have a reddish component. My wife saw beams of red extend from those lights, and said some of the blue/white ones appeared to be dome-like. I didn't see this because they flashed on and off so quickly that I couldn't focus like she can.All of this was seen from a distance, and the flashes of light appeared more or less within the same general altitude. They never streaked up into the sky, but remained constant against the backdrop of the Santa Catalina Mountains. although much, much higher than any fireworks display.There was no emotional reaction to any of this, rather just awareness of seeing something quite extraordinary, unlike anything we'd seen before.I called 911 to ask if anyone had reported seeing something similar and was told that earlier that evening lights were reported seen at Puch Ridge, an area somewhat north and west that was not visible from my vantage point. When I asked again if there were other sightings I was told that information could not be divulged. I would guess that during the course of the event, which lasted maybe 30-40 minutes, we saw in excess of a hundred such flashes of light, in different places, moving and stationary, flashing on and off, at different altitudes and for different length of time - but all for very short durations.As far I can tell there have been no other reports at this time of contemporaneous similar sitings - but we know what we saw!