NUFORC Sighting 123597

Occurred: 2015-11-07 18:00 Local
Reported: 2015-11-07 19:29 Pacific
Duration: 5 minutes
No of observers: 2

Location: Escondido, CA, USA

Shape: Fireball
Characteristics: Lights on object, Aura or haze around object, Left a trail, Aircraft nearby

Flying object with long fiery tail and blueish green spherical cloud

Saturday 11/7/2015 Escondido, CA Around 6pm my wife pointed to the sky and exclaimed, "What's that?!" I looked up to the west and saw something flying across the sky with a very long fiery tail behind it, on the order or hundreds if not thousands of feet long. It looked like what I imagine a rocket would at night.

The tail fizzled out within 10 or 15 seconds, but the object kept flying. Then a giant spherical smoke cloud eminated, which quickly kept expanding towards us. The cloud also had an iridescence to it, sort of greenish blue, which kept glowing for a few minutes. It was very ominous. My wife asked if we should leave the area, but I was overwhelmed with curiousity and elected to stick it out.

After the cloud appeared, the made a slow turn away from us, maybe 90 degrees, and kept flying. It remained visible for a few minutes, before being washed out by local light pollution.

I'm VERY curious to know what this was, or if anyone else saw it (other airplane in the area flew near the cloud, so check FAA reports too).

NUFORC Note:

US Navy missile launch. PD

Posted 2015-11-12