I drove to my house and pulled into the driveway, which runs in a north-south direction. I got out of my car and looked to the eastern sky. The visibility was very good, with no haze, and there was a very thin layer of cirrus clouds at approximately 30,000-37,000 feet. At the east end of my street (approx 100 yards away from my house) there is a perpendicular street with homes and a tree line on the other side. The tree line rises 35-40 feet into the air, allowing me to see all of the sky from 20 degrees up. So, as I glanced toward the east, I saw a reddish/orange flickering light coming into view from behind the tree line. The object was quite high in altitude and it looked like a rocket launch, except there was no exhaust trail. The object appeared to be ascending at a high rate of speed and moving toward the east. When I say high rate of speed, I don't mean it transversed the sky in seconds but it was very high up and relatively appeared to be moving at the rate no slower than a commercial aircraft in cruise flight (about 500knots). The object continued flickering as it moved from the east diagonally across the sky to the south west. It also appeared to be heading more westerly when I first saw it, then gradually changing course to the southwest. As the object was halfway across the sky, the flickering dimmed and faded to a small white dot, which then disappeared from the naked eye, although I was certain it was still there, the light source was gone. It looked like when the sunlight reflects off an aircraft and as it flies past the curvature of the earth, it dims until you cannot see it. The sun had set nearly an hour before and there was no ambient daylight in the sky. So, if this was a reflection off of the sun, the object had to be at a very high altitude. Now, as the first object dimmed, the EXACT same type of light appeared again in the eastern sky and did exactly what the first one did. This happened a total of 4 times, with each sighting separated by one minute. I tried to video the lights with my iPhone but they were too far away to get a clear shot.I am a commercial pilot and I know what an aircraft looks like at night. I've seen thousands of them from every imaginable direction. I live close to JFK airport and I know the arrival and departure patterns. These lights were not following any of the standard routes. I even saw a departing airliner crossing right below the objects path (relative to my view) and could determine the unidentified object was much higher and farther away than the airliner. The objects did not have the FAA required lighting for an airplane. No red/green/and white navigation lights. No flashing white anti-collision strobe lights, no bright landing or taxi lights, no red flashing beacon. Just flickering red and orange. As I said before, my immediate thought was that I was observing a missile or rocket launch. I have never made a UFO report and it takes something this strange to me to submit one. During the sighting, I was not frightened nor did I feel any sense of danger or feel threatened. I was in a small state of awe and confusion as to what I was observing. Now, I'm just curious and trying to find people who have witnessed similar phenomena. I even went to a website which links to the Air Traffic Control Radar display and the playback showed no aircraft flying in that direction and in such sequence.