a cigar shaped craft with muti-colored lights around it traveling toward the southwest absolutely silently and at a rather slow speed.

The craft we saw was mainly in sillouette as it was quite dark out.  However there were multi-colored lights ringing the craft. We were all of the opinion that it was at a fairly low altitude and there was absolutely no noise emenating from the craft.  It was traveling from the Northeast to the Southwest at a rather slow speed and eventually it disappeared behind trees.  I really do not believe that it was a blimp because the part of Iowa we saw it is pretty rural.