An extra star in the big dipper's handle

When I was fourteen I was laying on my front lawn with my next door neighbor enjoying a beautiful, clear, starry summer night. We were chatting with each other, singing songs, etc, and took no special notice of the night sky. After about an hour or so, after we had chatted and sung ourselves out, I layed back and was looking up at all the constellations. The big dipper was directly above me and I remember looking at it for about 5 minutes, not noticing anything odd, when all of a sudden one of the stars in its handle shot off at a high speed in an eastward direction, stopped, shot off again in a nothern direction and disappeared. Needless to say my neighbor and I were stunned.
The thing that amazes me to this day was how well the object disguised itself. I knew the big dipper handle only has three stars but I didn't think anything of the fourth because it was spaced perfectly between two others, was sized perfectly, and was twinkling like the other stars. Nothing looked unordinary until it took off. Til this day I like to think that it waited for me and my neighbor to look up and conentrate before it took off.
I realize that this may not even be labled a Close encounter of the first kind because no object shape, texture, etc. was visible. Still it changed my view of the universe and life in it forever.
 
Witness indicates that date of the event is approximate.  PD