2005-09-03 - Carrboro, NC - Unknown

I looked into the sky and saw an unusally bright light and thought it was a helicopter going to the nearby hospital. The lights flickered and seem to change with smaller lights appearing around a central white light. I watched it and it was making no consistent progress toward any direction. I then thought it was a star, but every once in a while it moved erraticaly coinciding with strange feelings that it was going to move. The movements were way different than a plane, or any plane that I have seen. I still thought it was probably just a star, but i noticed that my original point of observation (where I had been watching it through the trees) had changed significantly. I saw a plane fly overhead and I lost sight of the light. Soon it reappeared assumably from behind a cloud but vanished soon there after. I came inside to check the night sky map to confirm that it was a bright star or planet. Since it was almost certainly the brightest star I saw in the sky. I sky mapped only the brightest level magnitude of star. I estimated its bearing to be sw - wsw, but could night readily identify a star which corresponded to its position. It was probably nothing more than a star or planet that I could not identify, but if anyone else saw something this could be a secondary source.