I was working at Kathy Kwiatkowski's ranch on Bull Creek Road in Greeley Hill/ Coulterville area (209) 768-2332 on the 9th of December from 3:00 to 6:00pm. I was working on a horse named Cassinova and Kathy at the same time out by her barn. I looked up and saw a long thin craft that was just still and steady above the tree line- it was not close or at least did not appear that way. I would say in relationship to a regular commercial airplane the object may have been slightly closer. The objet started to shift or spin clock wise about 90o and then go counter clock wise but was so fast the manuver was blurred and then the object had split into two that had a strobe light quality but shape was hard to decipher. Honestly if I did not see the craft split I probably would have thought it was a plane or something "normal". The only difference was that the lights blinked really fast, no noise, a beam of light that was pretty faint, and the flight patterns were odd. The objects, one on my right flew at a casual pace away from the other one, while the other one had a beam of light comming from it shining in a 45o angle towards the ground but not on the ground since it was so high in the sky and headed in our direction which was directly in front of it. This second craft was also at a casual pace. I was a little freaked out so I thought we better get in the barn since it was comming towards us and I was suspicious of that beam of light. Connie Welsh (209)878-3336 of Greeley Hill, Kathy and myself ducked into the barn which was probably 12 feet from where we were working on the horse. We lost sight of the craft since it flew over the barn and then could be seen again off to the right side of the barn with the beam of light now projecting 45o angle in the sky not towards the ground.The craft ended up doing a complete circle and came to the point where it had split then drifted further away from us but still directly in front of us. Connie's dog was in her car at the other side of the barn. She went to check in on him only to see several more crafts on the other side. She called to us and we got there just in time to see two more longer crafts break the same spinning way into now 4 more crafts as well as 2 others that had already spilt prior to us going on that side of the barn. Three of the crafts, total, had beams of light that pointed in different directions: one horizontal across the skyline, one above, and the earlier craft did both towards the ground and above. We watched the pairs move away from its mate and how their beam was comming from one of the pairs only. Kathy's ranch is very open and you can see the whole area. The crafts surrounded the area very high up in a horseshoe shape that appeared somewhat uniform or organized. We watched until they drifed farther apart and felt like we had a window of opporutunity to leave. It was very close to 6 pm when Connie and I drove out Kathy's driveway in separate cars.