Occurred: 2002-04-17 20:46 Local
Reported: 2002-04-29 18:01 Pacific
Duration: 3-5 minutes
No of observers: 3

Location: Oxnard, CA, USA

Shape: Light


On Wednesday April 17, 2002 I had just returned home from attending a Centennial Committee meeting that had finished at Oxnard City Hall around 8:10 pm or so.

After arriving back at my apartment complex, and as I was walking back to my apartment at around 8:30 pm, I stopped to chat with one of the maintenance folks who was standing outside the laundry room with his girl friend.

Since it was a very clear night sky, I mentioned to them how bright the stars were, especially with all the evening fog we had been having. As we were looking up at the moon and stars (we were facing west and looking Northwest), we noticed two very bright white objects - which at first I mistook for stars. As we watched them though, we noticed that the bright white objects were moving from the northwest towards the south about the speed which airlines normally travel from LAX to SFO. One was trailing the other very close - too close for conventional commercial aircraft in air corridors.

As a matter of fact, these objects were traveling in the vicinity of the air corridor for air traffic flying between LAX and SFO, with the exception that they appeared very high in the sky - higher then normal air traffic would be. Since I have a commercial pilots license (in-active pilot), I was trying to see the red and green wing tip lights that would determine they were either private or commercial aircraft. After watching for a minute, I could never make out the shape of the object or see any wingtip lights. After concluding that they must be commercial aircraft, I went up to my apartment and turned on the TV.

Unfortunately, that was not the end of the story. The next morning I saw the maintenance man who had watched the objects with me the previous evening. He told me that had I stayed another 1 1/2 minutes and watched, I would have seen something unexplainable for an ordinary aircraft to do. Evidently, as the bright white objects were getting closer towards LAX, they separated with one shooting straight up and the other going up and out-of-sight at a very steep angle. He thought that it might be a "stealth" aircraft but I told him that "known" military aircraft cannot achieve those kinds of speed.

I have read other reports for April 17th which seem to mirror the events we witnesed. I have also read that what we witnessed may have been the ISS and Space Shuttle passing overhead.

Posted 2002-05-14

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