Three huge brillant flashes of light way out past the horizon on the Pacific Ocean

The time was about 1:00 A.M. on Nov 10, 2012. I had just lay down in bed when a flash of brilliant light, like lightning, lit up the entire sky for a second.  I got out of bed and went to my bedroom window overlooking the Port of Grays Harbor area in Hoquiam, WA.   I didn’t see anything but did take notice that there wasn’t a cloud in the sky.  I went to the spare bedroom that faces west.  There I stood for about 3 minutes looking out for a thunderstorm when another giant flash of light lit up the sky again.  This time I could see the brightest area to be west of Ocean Shores, WA, so far out that you could tell the source came from far beyond the horizon.  The flash was so bright it made it like daylight for a second. I continued standing there wondering if this might me lightning from way off the coast. Just like the time lapse between the first two flashes, after another four minutes, there was another flash, just as bright, coming from the exact location, making me think lightning might be the source.  I did notice that it was so bright, I could see the horizon clearly and there were absolutely no thunderstorm tops to be seen out there.  I have lived on the coast and seen lightning offshore but the tops of thunderheads are usually visible during lighting and never ever anything this bright.  
I contacted a local news station in Seattle and asked them if they could look at the radar records and determine if thunderstorms were off the coast that early morning but they are not responding of checking this out.  I am very sure that if anyone had a security camera’s recording that they would have detected these three brilliant flashes.  No other flashes occurred and after observing another 30 minutes, I went to bed.