Light far away in sky racing away from a location & back twice to again race away and not return

This sighting corresponds quite closely to a sighting reported in Salina, Kansas, on 09/20/73.
I have estimated a date/year in which this occured.  I am unsure if it was indeed 1976. It could have been 1975.
First off, I am a realist.  I don't fall easily into the ghost/UFO sighting scene, but I know what I saw and it was very unexplainable.
I was in my bedroom at approx. 2245 hrs. and just laying in my bed looking out the window when up in the sky in a west southwest direction I observed what at first I thought was a possible satellite.  I was in Boy Scouts at the time and we would always point out a certain satellite that would bounce up and down and change colors.  This object did not change colors but was moving up,down, and back & forth.  Then it raced away towards the North completely out of sight and at an unimaginable rate of speed, but within seconds came back to the approx. area in which it first was.  It then raced off again at an incredible speed and returned again, but this time it came back from a different angle.  Again, it raced off which looked to be a diagonal direction upwards but again to the North.  It never returned. I remained at the window for at least an hour just hoping it would return.
My next door neighbors were out of town visiting family in Topeka, Kansas. When they returned, I informed my friend what I had seen and overhearing me was her mother. She informed me that while they were in Topeka that some neighbors of their relatives also saw the exact same thing in the sky.
I am now 43 years old and a Deputy Sheriff.  At the time, I was approx. 9-10 years old.  This sighting has always bothered me since that time.  I read all these fantastic reports and they sound really silly.  But what I saw was totally genuine and I would really like to know of similar reports of this sighting.  I can't be the only one that saw this.  If in Kansas it was also seen, then I would think many people also saw it.  I am very determined to investigate this occurance just to possibly get some answers.