Help identifying ULTRA bright object

[Rawkn]

Hey everyone! I was wondering if anyone might have some idea as to what I may have observed.

So it was Saturday night, at around 11:45pm local time here in Southern Maine. I was outside with my telescope looking toward the south, trying to perfect my home made camera mount. So I didn't have my eye up to my eye piece, when suddenly the whole ground, and my clothes lit up, like a flash of lightning from behind me. I knew there were no storms for hundreds of miles, but naturally I turned around to look. Maybe a transformer blew up, or something in my neighbors house. 

Anyway, I turn around, and up in the sky, traveling from about wsw to ene, on a very similar path to what I've seen the ISS take, a silent object looking like a satellite, lights up extremely bright, full moon bright. Dims to nothing, or next to nothing, gets very bright, dims, rinse and repeat. It was visible for 60-90 seconds before disappearing behind the trees and it "flared" about 20 times, getting dimmer by maybe 10-15% with each flash. The first half of its flashes were much brighter than any flare I've ever seen, and the first one I saw while back to had to be unimaginably bright to light up myself and the ground.

The only way I could explain so many flares, would be a tumbling satellite. But to be THAT bright, it'd have to be many times larger than the Iss, or have highly magnifying mirrors. There were no fireballs, streaks, no pieces breaking off like a fireball meteor (which I have observed before). It was brighter than landing lights, unless the plane was 500 feet up and made absolutely no noise, and a low plane going across the sky that slow would be odd too. So... Any ideas? Hopefully I've been detailed enough. Oh, and it was pure white light. Just like a satellite or ISS, but many many magnitudes brighter. Also, the ISS didn't fly over that night, nor will it for the next 9 days. And finally, none of my apps showing satellite flyovers or iridium flares reported any sort of satellite in that part of the sky within 10 minutes of when this happened. 

Thanks for any replies and ideas you may have! 

[Ben the Ignorant]

That behaved like a tumbler except the brightness is way out of tumbling satellite league. I am clueless but interested.

And hello to you, too! You're starting off with intriguing stuff!

[RolandKol]

Me and my friends been flashed in a similar manner back in the year 1999 (aprox) Lithuania, Vilnius (it was autumn.. don't remember the month, late evening). It was from East, in around 70 - 80 degrees altitude.
We were hiding from parents and smoking cigarettes and were scared off by that light

We have not managed to figure out what was that...

Later, I heard of some kind  "low noise" helicopters,  but never tried to investigate... if they do exist, they would explain a lot.

[JohnSadlerAstro]

I've never seen anything like that, although our local police get satisfaction out of circling our town in a helicopter and landing in random fields late at night. They also use a searchlight on the helicopter which they seem to think is meant for shining in windows, etc.  

You could try contacting the AAVSO and see if anyone else observing in the area at the same time saw anything similar?  

John