Very large object seen in mid October 1978

I am a musician and was going home to Nashua from a job playing at the Deerfield Fair with one of my band mates and another friend.  It was pretty cold that night and the air was clear.  As we were driving west on Rte. 101 I noticed a large object in the sky moving slowly from north to south.  I pointed it out to my companions and we pulled over and got out of the car to get a better look.
When we stopped the object stopped moving. It appeared to be at least a mile or two away and was very large, about the size of a silver dollar held at arm's length. It was at about 10 o'clock from the horizon. It was an elongated oval shape and perpendicular to the ground. I seemed to have a bump on one side. The object was glowing purple and the raised area was glowing red. There were two rows of orange or yellow lights on the oval part that were flashing in opposite directions around the oval. The overall shape reminded me of one of those children's tops with the lever that you push up and down to make it spin except slightly flatter and on its side.
We watched the object for about 10-15 minutes as it hung there in the sky.  While we were stopped, someone in a pickup truck stopped and asked if we needed help.  We explained what we were doing. He had a CB radio in his truck and I could hear other people on the CB chattering about the object.  He looked with us for a minute or two and left.  We finally decided to go ourselves as the object was just hanging there.  When we started moving the object continued moving slowly south and eventually passed from view.  It moved a little slower than an airplane and seemed to move at a steady speed.
When we got back to Nashua my band mate's girlfriend was waiting up for us.  She was nearly hysterical.  She had been out at a dance class and on her way home had apparently encountered the same object except that it was directly overhead and low to the ground.  She said that it covered the whole sky.
Surprisingly or perhaps not, there was nothing about this in any of the local papers even though there were many, perhaps hundreds of witnesses.
Witness indicates that the date of the incident is approximate.  PD