my husband and I were watching tv about 8;30 PM WHEN I HEARD a helicopter flying over. I saw it was flying north. (we live in a rural area with corn and bean fields surrounding our home). Within minutes we heard a loud thundering sound, like several jets.It got so loud I went to the back deck to look up. Suddenly there was a huge flash of light in the north about 1/4 mile away. My husband thought a jet blew up. Then there were many flashes of light but they were stationary and lasted only seconds. THe the loud rumbling faded away. We went back inside. Again we heard the sound of jets approaching from the south. We both jumped up and went to the front porch and yard. The noise was very loud. ALmost overhead a bright light flashed, egg shaped likr, then disappeared to reappear a short distance away then there were several. Our son and family live mile west, we called them and they saw them too. This display continued on and off for about another 40 min.We called the airbase to see if they were doing war games in our area. No, they said never in this area. Our neighbor to the north also heard the sounds but never went outside. We were told by the air base there were no jet in our area during this time period. We really thought it was just war-games but the air base denied any traffic in the area..