Fully illuminate airplane-shaped craft splits in half and continues in different directions.

The sky was crystal clear with bright distinct stars (though I don't remember the phase of the moon) on a summer's night about 30 years ago when I witnessed the following:  A couple of miles to the south and perhaps at an altitude of a mile or so I saw what looked like an airplane (a modern passenger jet for that time) traveling from the south to the south-east.  It struck me as very odd, because it looked just like someone had taken a translucent, plastic model of a plane and put a bright light inside it.  The whole craft was a distinct bright white color.  That was the part that seemed odd, since normally one only sees lights at the extremities of a plane.  I watched it travel from due south towards the southeast at a normal pace for a plane of that distance and altitude (it could have been higher than a mile). The shape was very distinct with wings and tail fins in normal proportions. As I was watching it and noticing how strange it was, all of a sudden it split in two from nose to tail fin and one half went towards the northwest and the other went towards the southwest.  The whole event probably took between a minute and two minutes.  After the object split, the two sections took off in their respective directions at an accelerated speed and were soon lost to sight.  I might not have reported this incident, since it happened so long ago, if I hadn't come across a similar event reported in this database from Lewiston, NY on 10/2/99 at 12:00.  In my sighting, the large wings were in the front, just like a real plane.  I also heard no sound (it was clear AND quiet).  Again, there was no vapor trail.  I've told people about this for the last 30 years, and they all think I'm nuts; it's nice to see that someone else has had almost the same experience!