Very Bright White Light Making No Noise At Low Altitude

I live about 45 miles from O'Hare, so we do have planes fly over frequently. Also there is a small craft airport about 5 miles from my house in the opposite direction from O'Hare. We also sometimes have helicopters fly by, at low altitude, as needed for the "Flight for Life" program for emergencies (example; car accidents). The reason I'm telling all this is because being a star gazer, I know the usual crafts that fly overhead.
 Around 23:00 hours I was letting my dogs out. It was a very warm and humid night with a very slight haze, no moon visible, but the brighter stars were visible. I could see the Big Dipper, so the slight haze wasn't much of a factor. Suddenly from the Northwest a very bright white light appeared in the sky. At first I thought it was an approaching "Flight for Life" helicopter. As the light passed over, at about the altitude you would see the copters fly, but there was absolutely no noise. There were no usual blinking red lights. The object continued flying to the Southeast, but then abruptly shot straight up into the sky at an accelerated speed before disappearing from view.
Right after it shot straight up, there appeared to be heavy cloud cover near the area it shot up at. When I checked the skies again about 30 Min. later, the sky was just slightly hazy once again.
I would say the observation time lasted about 35 sec.