I was outside viewing the stars on a clear night with another person at 11pm. admiring the clarity, we were learning some constellations in the yard, 5' from the porch, 30' from the tree line. we noticed a flash of light and thought it was lightning. we looked in the direction that it came from. there was a small white light in the sky traveling very steadily from n to se about 2.5 miles up in the sky. the other person's husband is a pilot, and they travel in personal planes very regularly, so she can calculate distances well. at first we thought it was a plane, but there weren't the signature red or white strobe lights on it. there was no sound, during or after we saw the object. we than saw it flash a very high powered white light beam down to earth-it almost looked like the led colored lights-so bright of a white with a hint of blue. it lit up the trees near the opening around us, and lasted a half a second. the traveling light in the sky than changed direction, now going e. we watched it as it beamed two more times, and than vanished. the other person and i were talking to each other the entire time, asking each other, "did you see that?!" and moving to see more clearly. after it was gone we went inside and talked about it. we were a little bit concerned and very curious but not necessarily scared. the entire event lasted about half a minute.