Very bright white light moving sideways and down in the sky.

I saw it in the mid to late 1980’s as I was coming home from the Iowa State Fair. The light was moving sideways slowly towards the ground and before it went out of sight I saw some sparks or something come out of the back of it. I stopped and pulled up beside the car in front of us to ask them if they had seen it. They did and had no explanation either. A police officer also saw it. When I turned west towards the acreage where I lived from the intersection of highways 3 & 4 I didn’t see anything more until I drove around 3 miles to the gravel road where I turned right/north to head to my acreage. About a half mile down the road I looked off to the right about a mile away where I saw the bright white light again and it was on the ground. I stopped the car and got out to look at it and shortly after that the light went out. Never saw anything again, but I had a euphoric feeling after seeing it and I didn’t feel scared, just excited. I have always wondered about what I saw-if maybe it was space junk or something else.