flash of light

We were eating dinner tonight and my kids heard helicopters flying overhead. It is not uncommon to hear helicopters and airplanes flying over our house, as RBS is not far from an air force base. Being that we live on the edge of RBS we see the flights possibly more than many other people in the neighborhood.

Tonight there was a lot of helicopter activity over us, and more so over the mountains across from our house. So during dinner my kids hear a few helicopters and run out to the porch to see. It was already dark but they could see the lights of 3 helicopters flying overhead and then mostly over the mountains across.

All of the sudden there was a flash of light on the horizon beyond the mountain across from us. After a few minutes there was another flash of light in the same place. The helicopters disappeared. A few minutes later the helicopters were back in view in the area of the mountains and suddenly another flash. This happened a few more times.

The sky was not clear, so it was hard to tell what the flash was. Because of the helicopter activity we suspected we were watching either a training mission shooting some sort of bright flair or a dummy bomb/missile. Another option was that we were watching the air force blow up Gaza, as that was the general direction (though it seemed a little too far north to be plausible). The kids were very excited about seeing that.

Then there was another flash. Again in the same spot. But this time the sky was clearer and I got a better look at it. It was clearly the telltale zigzag of a lightning bolt. The helicopters were just a coincidence. Oh well, but it was still pretty cool.