2009-03-26 - Mills River, NC - Formation

3 circling lights, 1 stationary light, 5-10 minutes in one place, vanished mysteriously

My daughter, age 17, was looking out the living room window and said she saw some lights in the sky. I looked out and saw 3 lights, rounds, a bit dim, moving in unison in a circle. It looked like they were kind of chasing each other, but they also stayed uniform. Then, they seemed to merge. Then, they went back to their circling formation. I thought it was kids with flashlights against the night sky, but when I went out side to get a better look, I couldn't see any rays. Also, there was one stationary light to the left of the three moving lights. If I was imagining a ship, I would say that the light on the left was like a window and the three moving lights were landing lights or whatever. But I can't figure out how or why they would merge every once in a while. I should also say that the light never stopped, and they always were moving in a circle. The lights were behind a cloud. It was the only cloud in the sky but it was big and it had stopped raining about an hour ago, so I figured it was leftover clouds. However, I couldn't figure out what would cause such lights. I got curious and told my daughter we would ride over to get a better look, since the lights seemed low and close. As we drove, the lights did not stay behind but followed us! This meant it was a BIG object. Then, when we turned the corner, the lights vanished. We drove about 30 seconds from the house and the lights were GONE. We went back to the house after a few minutes of driving and stopping. When we got back home, the lights were gone and the cloud was gone too. The sky was totally clear. Weird. The cloud obscured the lights so that I thought they were coming from the ground but there was no evidence of any person or light, ambulance or party, near the area. We live in semi-rural so that evidence would be easy to spot. Nothing unusual on the ground.