White flashing light moving irregularly through sky.

I witnessed a bright flash in the Northeastern sky, followed by a second bright flash a few seconds later.  I was watching for meteors directly above in the Milky Way, since it was a clear night.  The flash was so bright, I saw it out of the corner of my eye—a big ball of white light.  It immediately grabbed my attention.  I traced the object across the sky for over 10 minutes.  It moved in an irregular pathway at an inconsistent speed, flashing at irregular intervals.  Sometimes it appeared to stay in one place for a few seconds.  Some flashes were very bright—brighter than a satellite or planet, some flashes were very faint, and many of the flashes were brighter than the stars and comparable with a planet or satellite.  All the flashes were white light and of varying durations, the longest being about half a second.  The flashing object moved in an unpredictable, zig-zag pathway across the sky, moving from the Northeast towards the West/Northwest.  After about 10 to 15 minutes, I lost it through the trees.
The object had to be very high in the atmosphere, if not outside the Earth’s atmosphere.  At one point, I witnessed a jet airliner fly directly under the object as it flashed, so it was much higher than an airplane.  It made no noise that I could discern, but the heavy amounts of background noise could have drowned it out (diesel generators).  Its irregular speed and pathway rules out the possibility of it being an orbiting satellite or high flying aircraft.  No civilian aircraft or space craft could fly like that.  I do not believe it was any space debris falling back down to earth, as it would have left a trail and been a consistent glow.  I suppose it could have been some piece of highly-reflective material being tossed around in the upper atmosphere (but what and how did it get there?).  There’s no way it was a coincidental set of meteors.
Something that is also possibly related.  Around 9:30 PM, my cat went completely nuts.  Chasing none existent beings around the room like she went crazy.  As soon as I opened the door to go outside and look for meteors, she abruptly burst outside and ran around the yard.  A few minutes after I had lost sight of the object, she ran up to the door perfectly normal again.
I am a person of science, but I cannot logically explain what I saw to any degree of certainty.  The entire event freaked me out, along with two other co-witnesses.  None of my colleagues have believed my account of what I saw.  I know what I saw, and I know it was not normal or something that will be easy to throw aside.  I know that this was in the most literal sense:  an Unidentified Flying Object.
Witness elects to remain totally anonymous; provides little contact information.  PD