We were driving home and I always look up at the sky when not having to drive.The object looked almost like a tower light, but very bright. It was also green which is weird since most are either red or white. It never flashed. I could not tell if it were only one light first and turned into 4 OR was 4 the entire time and so far out that I saw it as one. The light(s) turned from green to red and NEVER flashed like you would expect to see with planes. In fact there are a lot of planes in the sky around at night since we live about 25 miles from the Charlotte airport. I know what planes and helicopters look like. This was NOT anything I have ever seen before. The final shape was 4 red lights in a checkerboard shape. Like imaginary perpendicular lines with 4 quadrants. Each quadrant had a red light. It also must have been traveling fast! I saw it go from 11 o'clock to 5 o'clock and seemingly disappear in the span of about 30 seconds. In that short time, it hovered, changed direction suddenly, and sped off while the lights changed from one bright large green to the 4 smaller red ones in the checkerboard formation. It seemed like it was only one object though.