NUFORC Sighting 138027

Occurred: 2017-12-22 17:30 Local
Reported: 2017-12-22 19:29 Pacific
Duration: ~15 minutes
No of observers: 2

Location: Seaside, CA, USA

Shape: Sphere
Characteristics: Aura or haze around object, Left a trail, Emitted other objects, Changed Colo

Object came from the east and left a contrail, then split into two spheres which left in different directions at high speed.

Initially visibly as a red to orange glow near the eastern horizon, this object left a visible contrail, initially orange, which gradually became white. The diameter of the contrail varied. It closed at very high speed until it covered about two thirds of the distance between us and the eastern horizon- at which point it appeared to explode. I have watched a number of meteor showers- and this did not resemble any meteor I have ever seen. We initially thought it was probably an aircraft catching light from the sun, which was at that time not far below the horizon. At the point where it appeared to explode, the contrail abruptly flared into a very large white cloud covering about 20 degrees, from which two glowing spherical objects with visible discs emerged with no further trails. One went northeast at a high rate of speed and rapidly vanished; the other hung in the sky for about three minutes and then moved southeast, with less acceleration than the first ob! ject. Efforts to take pictures (we were catching a sunset with a P-900 and a D-5500, both Nikons) yielded fair shots of the cloud, but not the spheres- there were no discernable details visible by eye or digital images. There were no sonic booms or other noises associated with this sighting.

NUFORC Note:

Missile launch. PD

Posted 2018-01-12