Flashes of white light followed by non-periodic, lesser intensity orange "burning" lights of longer duration.

Was outside on back porch.  Light caught my attention by flashing bright white, point-source.  Flash was brighter than any star or satellite I have seen previously.  Light was approximately 80 degrees above the horizon relative to my position.  After the initial bright, white flash there were subsequent flashes as the lights moved slowly to the north.   The odd thing was there was no periodicity to the flashes; they were random in time during the 5 minute observation.  between each bright flash were less bright, almost orange "burning" flashes.  They seemed to intensify then sort of "burn out".   Very strange and very high in the sky.  I have been a casual observer of meteors and fireballs, but this was none of those.  After watching for a few minutes there were no more flashes.