Bright object breaks off into three objects and then joins and breaks off again before making an abrupt turn

Was laying down and observing the shooting stars.  Then what appeared to be a very large bright star came across the sky from the east and was heading in a westerly direction.  The object then broke off into three stars and that is when I told my partner to look at that shooting star, within a second the object came back together as one and then broke off into three seperate units.  Within a few seconds the objects make a sharp turn to the north.  We could not identify what we saw, as a pilot, I knew it was not an aircraft, due to the speed and abrupt maneuvers the object was making.