3 lights in the night sky merge briefly into one light-only to separate into 7 or 8 as they move away from each other in a circle.

I was approximately 17 years old at the time. I brought our family German Shepard out our back door of the house for his evening outing. It was a clear night. Starry. No moon whatsoever. I often, when outside walking our dog, gaze at the night sky. We have a large piece of property out back-where you could walk around looking at the sky, without bumping into anything. I happened to see what I thought was a jet miles away- a single light moving accross the sky. About the size and brightness of a large star. As I just began to casually track its flight; my eyes picked up two other lights of the same size, moving towards the first light at what seemed like the same speed. It did not take me long to realize, that, they were all travelling towards an imaginary center point in the sky. As they approached each other, I could see that they were maintaining the same speed, and distance from each other as they got closer. When the three lights reached the center and each other; there appeared for just a few seconds-one light. Then, like a bursting firework in the sky, the one light became seven or eight, that, moved away from each other in a near perfect circle, at about the same brightness, speed and maintained distance. I watched as they disappeared, over about 20 seconds or so. Afterwards, I felt calmly elated, sort of comforting to observe this sort of show in the sky-that I still feel to this day, was meant for me to see. I went back in the house with our dog to relay my experience-which no one really paid any attention to. It didn't matter then-or now if anyone would care to hear about what I had seen. I saw what I saw.
Date is approximate.  PD