At approximately 6:50PM on Saturday January 21, 2012 I looked out my west facing master bedroom window from the northeast side of Colorado Springs. I saw a bright object in the sky to the southwest of me. I at first thought it was a star, but noticed it was much brighter and somewhat larger than a typical star. I next thought it was probably Venus, which I still have some lingering thoughts that it was, but then I noticed something odd. The clouds that were closer to the object were getting scanned by what looked like a search light moving in a circular fashion towards the clouds around the object. I thought perhaps a ground based search light, but I was unable to see any beam emanating from the ground, and there were no planes or helicopters in the vicinity at the time. I later observed a plane cross under the object further out in the distance. I did grab my video camera and recorded the object from my second floor master bedroom window at first, but I was unable to get a good shot of the cloud scan so I moved outside for a bit to record and see if I could capture the event better. I was able to see the light scanning the clouds faintly on the video, but as the cold settled in, I retreated inside and about 10 mins after that the object was no longer visible in the sky either from outside or my master bedroom window on the second floor.I still feel that I was viewing Venus and the search light was just a coincidence even though I couldn't trace a beam and the circular patter was strange. I am posting this report as I have doubts about what I saw and I am wondering if anyone else reported a similar event. I do have the video footage and would be happy to have it looked at by a MUFON investigator if they feel the need to see it.