Three orb lights disappear and reappear

My partner and I, who were both psychology students at the time, were looking out the window and observed an orb of light coming toward us from the southwest to the northeast, at about 45 degrees angle of elevation, perhaps 3 to 7 miles in altitude. It was around 10pm, clear skies, in an urban neighborhood setting with the Appalachian mountains 3 miles south of us. Initially, the orb was moving slowly approaching our direction, then suddenly disappeared and instantaneously reappeared a few miles closer to us. It then lingered for about 30 seconds, disappeared again, and reappeared near to the spot where we initially first saw it. It lingered again for about 30 seconds before disappearing again. It did not reappear after this. We weren't sure if this was a single object moving instantaneously back and forth, or three separate objects in a triangular formation slowly blinking off and on. The apparent motion of the lights did seem to be triangular. The lights were white, and there was no rapid blinking or sounds coming from them.