OK, I believe you covered my comment well. I wasn’t there so since you are the direct observer as to distance and light intensity I’ll defer.
The other reason I’m leaning away from flares is that each one took a good 30 (or more) seconds to disappear and though they were fading in intensity, they did not appear to be slowing down.
I have seen (from here) a large rocket from Wallops with satellite on board and was able to see a stage separation (pretty cool). I’m thinking these may have been atmospheric test rockets (perhaps?)