NUFORC Sighting 39096

Occurred: 2004-09-04 06:30 Local
Reported: 2004-09-04 02:15 Pacific
Duration: 5 seconds
No of observers: 2

Location: Huntington Beach, CA, USA

Shape: Light

A shooting bright red light intermittently visible in eastern sky near Saturn.

While attempting to view Saturn/Venus through intermittent cloud cover early Friday morning, my husband and I witnessed what appeared to be a red light falling through the sky. There were four separate sightings of this light, which appeared high in the eastern sky very close to Saturn. Each sighting lasted approximately 5-10 seconds, and spanned a total period of about 10 minutes. The unusual light (or object) was similar in appearance to the red dot that is produced by a lazer pointer, but brighter and larger. It appeared to be rapidly falling in an "s" shaped pattern, almost as if it was weaving in and out of the clouds. However, this description is somewhat inaccurate since we were able to view it clearly through the heaviest parts of the morning mist/cloud cover, even when Saturn (and everything else) was temporarily obstructed from our view. I am not sure whether this could have been a reflection from some sort of dust particles, since the sun was just coming up on the horizon. However, I have been star gazing for a while and have never observed anything this unusual. If anyone else witnessed something similar, or has any idea what it could be, please post it, as I am totally mystified.

Posted 2004-09-09