Three bright lights illuminating from behind clouds darting in irregular patterns at very high speed... also hovering and circling.My neighbor came over to ask if I had noticed the unusual lights. We went out on the deck and watched for about 30-45 minutes. Three oval lights moving at a high speed were hovering, randomly darting, and going in circles. We considered some kind of advertising beams, but found the overall patterns to be very fast and random, not mechanical. Lights appeared in the northern sky over a residential part of the city. We reported it to 911. My neighbor who used to work for the military thought suggested some sort of reconnaisance mission. She is in her 40's and I am in my mid-50's. Neither of us had ever seen anything like it before.