A line of 16 "craft" moving from west to east, apparently in low earth orbit, dropped objects into the atmosphere

Shortly after arriving at my deer hunting location on my farm, I was looking at the Big Dipper, and noticed what appeared to be a satellite transiting across the Dipper. This first “satellite” was soon followed by a second “satellite”, moving along the exact same path as the first one. The path was from west-northwest, to east-southeast. I thought it was unusual that two satellites would be moving so close together along the exact same path, when I noticed a third, fourth and more “satellites” moving across the sky. After about the fifth object crossed the sky, I noticed that bright objects were falling below the line of the “satellites,” travel, and that they would flare to maximum brightness about 15 degrees below the line of travel that the “satellites” were taking. I interpreted the increase in brightness to be the heat generated by objects entering the atmosphere. After a couple of seconds, the falling objects’ brightness would dim, and I could no longer see them. I counted at least 15 “satellites” moving along the same path, and about as many objects falling below the path of the “satellites”.  A sixteenth “satellite” then followed, but traveled a path that appeared to bow out slightly from the path the previous fifteen “satellites” took, and eventually moved back onto the same path as the rest of the “satellites”. I would note that the falling objects did not appear to breakup into smaller pieces, as you might expect a piece of falling space debris to do, but remained intact during their descent, and their appearances were evenly spaced, matching the spacing between the “satellites”.