NUFORC Sighting 119697

Occurred: 2015-06-21 20:38 Local
Reported: 2015-06-22 12:46 Pacific
Duration: 30 seconds
No of observers: 1

Location: La Mirada, CA, USA

Shape: Fireball
Characteristics: Lights on object, Changed Color, Aircraft nearby

Fireball coming from Fullerton area then over La Mirada and then blinking out over La Habra, California

I was visiting family in La Mirada, California. I was about 2 blocks south of the La Mirada Regional Park. I had just finished talking on the cell phone and looked up in the sky. It was 8:38 pm on Father's Day. There were several planes in line to the north and northeast of me heading towards the Los Angeles airport. And they was a police helicopter west of me; but what I saw south of me was not a plane nor helicopter.

It was not a Chinese lantern. It was low, about the height of a police helicopter and was silent as far as I could tell. It was traveling about the speed of a helicopter, but no noice coming from it. For the first 10 seconds I could hear the police helicopter west of me and further away, but when the police helicopter flew further away, I could not hear it and could tell the object I was seeing was silent. The object was closer than the police helicopter had ever been.

What I saw was first heading about north, towards me. It was a very odd color. No one looking at it could confuse it for the landing lights of a plane. It wasn't solid yellow nor was it solid orange; but almost seemed light swirling parts of yellow and orange; mostly orange. For just a few seconds, I thought a plane was on fire. It then was moving eastward towards La Habra. I am not sure if it turned, or if it was always moving in an arc. Anyway, now that it was not heading directly at me, I could see a small reddish light near what looked like the top of the swirling yellow/orange light. The red light was not directly on top, but near the top. It was not blinking, but a solid light. The red light was much smaller compared to the yellow/orange light.

The last 10 seconds of the sighting, as it was heading about east, I could see a very black tube-like craft. This blackness, at least from my angle, did not reflect the city lights. In this part of Los Angeles county, the sky is not pitch black due to so many city lights. So the craft was darker than the sky. I could not make out a shape for the black craft. But I could tell that the craft was about twice the size of the yellow/orange light parallel to the ground and about the width of the light.

And then then it just turned off. First I thought, maybe it disappeared behind some haze, but no, I could see a few stars where it disappeared.

Posted 2015-06-24