A flash above mountains and went from bright to dull several times; looked with telescope and definate object-tried to photograph.The flash was directly above mountains to the west. The flash would get really bright and then slowly fade away and get bright again. Several times, randomly.We watched it for 20 mins and it remained there going off and on. We looked at it with telescope and it was a definite object.We got our camera and would see the bright flash in view finder and took the picture but it would be total black-tried 3 times when it was bright. Immediately after third time the light zoomed off and left a glowing aura in the sky for a few mins after it left.