Quote:
Originally Posted by Jeff Root
If you can remember enough details, we could have a fairly good
chance of identifying what kind of thing you saw. But it sounds to
me like it would require a lot of questions and answers to rule out
a large number of possibilities. The brightness of the sky, brightness
of the streak and of the halo, length and width of the streak, speed
of the streak across the sky, size of the halo, and on and on.
The fact that you were in an unusual situation (for you) suggests
that it was most likely an ordinary phenomenon that you hadn't
seen before because you were new to the place.
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Since this occurred so long ago, it would be very difficult to provide those kinds of details. The best I can do is:
-I believe the sky was fairly clear
-It was late afternoon
-The halo brightness was about what I would have expected from a cloud or white smoke
-I don't recall the streak brightness so much as the fact that it didn't look like an everyday thing (such as a jet contrail). My impression at the time was that it was a rocket plume or the trail of something entering the atmosphere.
-The streak moved quite a bit faster than a commercial jet at cruising altitude. The elevation there was about 7000 feet, though, so that might affect things. If it was a jet, it would have to have been a military one, and perhaps it could have been flying much lower than a regular jet.
-The halo size is very difficult to estimate since I don't know how far away it was. I was standing near a lake, and the rock formation was on the opposite side. I would say that I was looking up at it at about a 30-45 degree angle. The halo began very small, and spread out over the course of a couple minutes. Before it started to dissipate, it looked a bit like a bicycle tire in terms of proportions.
The only other thing I recall about the incident is that one of the camp counselors said something like "Tell Vandenberg they were right on target" which made me think it was a rocket. However, what I didn't know at the time was that Vandenberg AFB is located on the coast about 300 miles south of where we were (Lake Tahoe), so it's not like we were in the neighborhood.