two lights circling each other in the night time sky then shooting away from each other in new orleans louisiana.

I was about 13 years of age at the time. My uncle was a fisherman and I worked on his boat in the summer as a deckhand. While waiting to leave for the overnight shrimping trip I was looking at the stars when I observed two bright lights circling each other at a high altitude. they looked like stars but were moving at a very high rate of speed. I went to where my uncle was an advised him to look up and pointed to where the lights were and he also observed them of a few seconds circling each other and right after that the two lights shot away from each other in opposite directions at incredible speeds and then they faded away. I have no idea what they were. Stars? Ive never heard of two stars getting caught up togeher like that and then shooting away from each other. Who knows?
Witness indicates that the date of the event is approximate.  PD