Mystery light seen in western sky was missile test
Local resident Liz Armstrong took this photo of a streaking light off Peachy Canyon Road in Paso Robles.
Scores of residents in San Luis Obispo County and thousands of Californians reported seeing a mysterious light over the western skies on Saturday night. It turned out to be a secret test of a nuclear missile launched from a submarine.
“We were riding around our vineyard when we noticed a very bright light in the sky like a spotlight from a helicopter,” said local resident Liz Armstrong. “We stopped our vehicle and turned off the engine expecting to hear a motor, and it was dead quiet, then the light erupted into this cone of light with the blue trail. The majority of the light dissipated into a fog, but a small light ball headed out over the ocean afterward.”
The mysterious light that streaked across California’s night sky Saturday, visible as far away as Nevada and Arizona, was a Trident missile test-fired by the Navy, the San Diego Union-Tribune first reported.
Navy Strategic Systems Programs conducted the scheduled Trident II (D5) missile test flight at sea from the Kentucky, an Ohio-class ballistic missile submarine, in the Pacific Test Range off the coast of Southern California, a Navy spokesman told the Union-Tribune.
Excerpt from the Union-Tribune:
The missile was not armed and Strategic Systems Programs does not routinely announce missile testing, the report said. Information regarding the test launch of such missiles is classified prior to the launch.
The test range is a massive area northwest of Los Angeles. The Navy periodically uses the range to test fire Tomahawk and Standard cruise from surface ships and submarines.
Law agencies and news media were flooded with calls about 6 p.m. from people reporting everything from a flare to a comet to a nuclear bomb in the western sky.
It’s not clear if the test has anything to do with flight restrictions issued for Los Angeles International Airport over the next week.
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