What was it?

I've been meaning to post this for a couple of weeks. On the night of August 21, 2009 we were camping at Clinton Lake in Kansas (near Lawrence), the night was unbelievably clear with no city lights ruining the view of the night sky. No moon was out, it wouldn't rise for sometime. The Milky Way was clearly visible stretching from one side of the sky to the other. I was looking for shooting stars even there wasn't a forecasted shower (that was the week before). While telling my family about the different stars and where they were and showing them different constellations I happened to glace toward the southwest sky when up above a bright single point of light got really bright then vanished. It lasted only a couple of seconds. The time was about 10:30pm. I have been trying to figure out what it was since then. I thought I had seen a star at that point earlier, but am not 100% on that. It could have been a meteor that would have been coming straight at us. But the way it acted was strange. While I watched it, it started small although very bright (it hadn't been there a few seconds before at that brightness) and grow in size and brightness until it disappeared. I did see 3 meteorites that evening and they were small short streaks in the sky. There was no plane in the area of the light and nothing moved from that point after the flash. My only guess and I am not sure on this is that it was a nova or super nova. Although I wonder if a pulsar would do the same? What ever it was, it was cool.

The coordinates that we were at when we saw it are as follows: Latitude  38°54'22.22"N  Longitude  95°22'26.18"W

My main reason for posting this is for any one else that saw it and is searching for information on it.