Bouncing lights in cloud cover

A couple of weeks ago I was sitting out in my backyard about 10:30pm, when I noticed a series of bouncing lights in the norwest sky, there were high clouds in the area that night, and the lights stayed within the cloud cover. At first I thought it was some kind of weird lightning, but it was not a stormy night. The lights also seemed to stop when ever an airplane was in the area, I was about to get one of my neighbors to take a look at it when it stopped. This is in the Buffalo New York area it has been bothering me ever since I saw it and wanted to know if anyone else saw this or if anyone can explain what I saw, I hesitate to us the UFO word since I did not see any kind of craft, just the roundish lights. I have been trying to figure out what it could have been since then.

Interesting What color was the lights?

They were yellowish white very much light car headlights.

well the brightest stuff in the sky around 10:30 PM, facing northwest is the big dipper. there really isn't much else that's bright in that directions, at that time.

one thing i've learned working at the observatory though is that sometime people think the brighter stars are "following" them home or around where they go. it's just because the lights are bright and have nothing behind them to show they're not moving.

also, the clouds could have diffracted the light, making it shimmer even more.

What size were the lights? Like the size of an average star or larger?

I know that sometimes the eye can play tricks on you and you'll think a star is bouncing around when really it's just difficult for us to focus in on a single star against a black sky....how fast and far between were they moving?

It was nothing like a shimmering star- The lights were at least three times the size of a normal star. They kept changing the movement too sometimes in a cicular pattern and sometimes, linear it did not seem random though almost like a timing or pattern.

Ground based spotlights?

Could you detect any pattern at all from it? Have you seen any since... it might be worth keeping an eye out for more activity.

Just the pattern I described before, no I have not seen them again, I have looked for them almost every night since then, but most nights have been very overcast.

Any chance it could have been the aurora borealis??