i was camping on the edge of a sesonal lake bed,( skookum lake ),last thursday with a friend. it was the first evening of several days of rock hunting. we had finished a late bbq dinner 1-2 hrs after dark, aprox 10:30. while i was readying an air mattress and bedding in the open bed of my pickup, my friend was watching the night sky and talking of seeing a couple of shooting stars and seeing what she called jets manuevering. i recall hearing sounds of jets but really wasn't looking or paying attention. at one point her voice got a little excited, saying,"look over there", pointing in a northwesterly direction. by the time i did, i didn't see anything. she simply said it was an odd light. this happened once or twice more within a few minutes without me seeing anything. i'm not sure of the next exact sequence, but i finally looked after her urging and saw a single light flash on, i can only describe it as, if you make a circle, cut it in half vertically and exsagerate it a little bigger, like a side view of an old style auto headlamp. just the headlamp off, not illuminated. i witnessed this once or twice then saw two, one next to each other. these flashed on for aprox 1-2 seconds. i don't recall hearing jet sounds in relation to the lights but once observed lights and noise i'd associate with an airplane(jet?)start on the n/w horizon go straight up to a 10 or 11 o'clock position make almost a u turn and head back to about the same spot close to where we saw one of the first half circle lights. i know i saw a single light at least twice, then the double set twice in different positions moving in our north sky from west to east. as a final look we both obseved two sets of two of these half circled type light flashes. i don't remember if it was then or not,(the final burst), but at some point when i saw them, i remember thinking i'd seen these same type(shaped)lights on some program on ufo's i've watched before. i still don't know which one it was but yesterday i decided they reminded me of the sightings in arizona some years back. the way those lights appeared when they first lit up, one after another. for what i saw,all the activity was over a span no more than ten-twenty minutes. my companion felt what we saw were military type manuevers with unconventional aircraft and although niether of us has any background or expertice in aircraft or military i agree with her. i forgot to mention my freind said that a little while after the final observance of four lights, that what she called a jet shot from where the four were to overhead, and gone in the southern sky. i wasn't aware of it i suppose i was in a state of semi shock. that is why i'm a little unsure of exact sequences. i want to say that i have spent many,many nights sleeping in the openair in the high desert over the past thirty plus years and have never seen any thing i didn't think was probably easily explainable, nothing! i also am and have been extremily curious of the subject of ufo's but for the lack of undisputible evidence am not sure of any extraterestial connection. i adamantly believe in thier probable, not possible exsistence given the size of our solar system and beyond. i also would not in the least be surprised in thier known exsistence by the,"powers that be", simply because of these power's covert nature. based on my limited knowledge and observance i would never on my own, say what i saw was extraterestial, but it was to me, literally an unidentified flying object. did anyone else see anything on that date in the pacific northwest ? one note, we did spend the next night at the same campsite and did not see anything. naturally i was armed and ready with my camera then. thanks, rick