Small lights circulating in a straight line, over and over

As I was walking the dog, I looked up to follow the path of an airliner flying west. As the airplane crossed the sky, out of the corner of my eye I noticed starlike dots, flying rather close to each other and in a northwest direction. I could see 4 lights trailing each other. As the lead dot disappeared a new dot appeared at the end of the formation and this continued for about 4 minutes. There were no flashing lights, only starlike dots moving in order, over and over again until they finally stopped. I called my wife outside and she also saw what I saw. Then, nothing.