Light moving erratically, accelerating rapidly and stopping on a dime.

While standing in my back yard at about 8:30 PM on March 14th 2023 and looking at the stars in the southern sky, one of the stars moved. I thought maybe I was just seeing some of the clouds passing in front of the star. I continued to watch, and the star moved again, moving side to side and up and down. I watched for a few minutes and then asked my wife to come out and see. We watched for several more minutes and the star continued its movements. At one point, a small light extended below the light (star) and remained for a couple of minutes and then went back up to the light. The light at one point accelerated very rapidly and stopped on a dime. It then went back in the direction it came from moving erratically up and down. Since then, I have seen the light almost every night and in the very early morning hour (3 AM) today March 20th 2023. It has appeared in the same general area of the sky each night. It appears to be higher than any cloud cover and higher than commercial high-flying aircraft that are lower than the clouds. The light was not moving like any aircraft I have ever seen.