2 formations of orange objects seen crossing sky at night

I was taking out the garbage for the next morning pickup at a little past 9:30 PM Jan 20th, and I happened to look up in the sky towards the ocean (southeast).
My attention was drawn to what I thought were 3 aircraft flying in an odd formation past and a little higher (in perspective) than the neighboring rooftops across the street.  Each had one orange light, with no other lights visible (no navigation or anti-collision lights, etc).
While the first formation was moving in a northeast direction, the middle object in the first formation of 3 made a sharp sudden dive towards the ground and pulled back up as sharply, rejoining the other two objects in formation. They were followed by a second formation of 5 additional objects (lights) perhaps 5 to 10 seconds behind the first formation, flying at a similar speed and in the same northeast direction. Also with one orange light each, with no navigation or anti collision lights visible on any of the group in the second formation. There was no sound from any of the objects in either formation, either during or afterwards. The shape or outline could not be determined in the short time both formations were visible (about 30 seconds, plus or minus). Sight of both formations was lost behind trees and other houses, and may have gone behind low clouds in that part of the night sky when I went to the back of the house to try and regain sight of them, without any luck.
Usually, if there are helicopters flying overhead or nearby, they can easily be heard. If there 2 or more, the racket is unmistakeable. Small or large aircraft also are unmistakeable. I pretty much thought these objects were drones, or maybe ultralight aircraft, except that the sky in the NYC area is pretty busy at any given time, and you would have to be a complete idiot to fly in a formation (or 2!) at night without navigation or anti collision lights. I never gave it any real thought it could be anything other than a man-made event designed to perpetrate a hoax, or sheer stupidity...maybe.
The first photo is of the neighborhood, with overhead wires removed and sky darkened to illustrate the objects and direction.
The second photo is a portion of a FAA sectional chart, which seems to indicate a generalized path for aircraft to take using Hylan Blvd as a possible navigation aid (TK-502).
The last photo is a screen shot taken from flightradar24, showing the path many aircraft take also using Hylan Blvd as a navigation aid. Both formations of objects seemed to follow the same route. The fuzzy dot is my approximate location.