Bright orange/pink cigar shaped object North of Tampa.

My husband and I were traveling north on Morris Bridge Road entering Hillsborough County from Pasco County.  When I noticed in the west sky a bright Orange/Pink lighted cigar shaped object, which was also traveling southbound towards Tampa.  
Since this was after 9/11, my first thought was that it was a missle of some type headed for MacDill or the city.  My husband (a former Marine weather observer), told me to stop the vehicle.  
We sat in the vehicle for several minutes watching. The object stopped abruptly just north of Tampa, then changed from a horizonal position to a verticle position and it began to move away to the west so fast we could not begin to appoximate the speed.  
My husband said that he had never seen anything like it and due to the fact that he was a former weather observer for the military and worked at several air towers making weather observations for the military, I really think that if it had been a plane, jet, other type of military aircraft, or weather instrument; he would have known what this object was.  
We are still unable to identify the object we saw that evening.
We have corresponded with the source of the report, asking what the exact, or approximate, date of the event was.  PD