Paul Maley adds....
I showed the original note to Paul Maley, and he replied (and granted permission to publish) as follows:
"in my opinion it is most likely a drifting
geostationary satellite. The fact that he first
mentioned Orion gave the first clue because the
declination of the geo sat belt is in that area, then
the long spate between 'strobes' also is another clue.
Sometimes the flashes appear at multisecond intervals,
other times longer. Even though it was in 1999, these
accounts have been around for a while and it would
probably be likely to track it down to the specific
satellite by going onto SEESAT-L"