NUFORC Sighting 16513

Occurred: 2001-02-16 20:20 Local
Reported: 2001-02-17 00:00 Pacific
Duration: 5 minutes
No of observers: 3

Location: Burbank, CA, USA

Shape: Light

Odd beam of light transversed the sky.

While stargazing with two friends in Burbank CA, we observed a white line several thousand feet high transversing the sky from north to south. There were no objects at either end, it then moved across the sky at a brisk pace west to east, retaining its form. I have observed many contrails, and this was different, it moved retaining its shape, (no windrift shape change or spreading). As it passed the visible planets Jupiter, Saturn and the stars Aldebarab and Sirius it occluded them, but a private plane flew overhead about 2-3 thousand feet on the flight path from Burbank airport and the plane was much lower than the beam. It was hard to determine if it was a cloud or a beam of light. It may have been the edge of an O-ring type formation of which we could only see one edge, (radar ring?). This comes on the night following the Bombing of Iraq and several Russian missle tests. None of us have ever seen anything similar in over forty years each.

Posted 2001-02-18