Could I have seen an astronomical event?

We had a beautiful clear night on Saturday and I was admiring the stars when I saw a beautiful bright red one. I thought it must be Mars, because I have heard people say it can appear extremely red. While I was watching it briefly grew very bright then faded away. I thought it might have been covered by a rogue cloud, although it was otherwise a clear sky and I waited for a good while, but it did not reappear. Could it have been Mars or perhaps a supernova or some astrological event? This happened on Saturday night (6th March 2010) at about 11pm I was looking about West - to the right of constellation of Orion, perhaps between 45 and 60 degrees of an angle up. My location is The Midlands in the UK.