I had put a used snack dish in the kitchen sink, and i looked outside towards the mountains of maine (border); i was looking at the beautiful starlit night and noticed that 2 stars appeared to be moving. i grabbed my binoculars and yelled at my wife sydney (who was in the living room to join me outside in our backyard area. i went outside first and watched these two star like ufos that were still slowly moving towards us at about a 30,000 foot level. my wife upon seeing the 2 moving objects, saw that there were three additional ufos, that i hadn't initially noticed. we saw these clearly and they all looked like small stars in a straight formation parallel to one another, separated by an interval of about one mile in between them. they emitted a brilliant bluish/diamond white glow and there was a kind of halo of energy around all of the craft. they were going at a slow cruising speed, and my wife and i commented while watching them that if people were to simply look up at the sky from their cars, or were not as hyper-vigilant as i was; as a former military type; they would not notice their movement, and would have dismissed them as stars. i am a former naval officer lcdr usnr formerly assigned to aircraft carriers, and i am good at judging distances up in the sky of jet aircraft. in any case, one of the two i initially spotted flew right over our location, and i was able to clearly see the bottom of the craft with my binoculars as it passed overhead; which had 4 concentric circles of exhaust? portals (these were also circular). otherwise around these portals was brilliant blue/white diamond-like brilliant light, which was all i could differentiate clearly. we were both excited about it, and i felt very thankful to have finally seen not only one, but 5 ufos before i cash in my chips in this life. the experience left my wife a true believer, where she had always doubted their existence before. these all continued over our heads and beyond us towards the west, until they faded from view over a period of approximately 20 minutes. i speculate they were going slow, maybe 100mph to observe the mount washington and mount jefferson valleys. my wife and i will never forget the experience.