Large sphere and cylinder space junk reentering atmosphere southeasterly of San Francisco probably in Central Valley or Nevada.
First of all I have seen an upper atmosphere/space vehicle launch from Vandenberg AFB when I was in San Diego and noticed the perfect cone of the rocket exhaust. Now that was similar to what I saw on this day except they appeared to be reentering. In San Francisco driving south on Highway 101 before Silver Street, I saw in the upper atmosphere at about 11 o'clock and to the southeast two objects. One was circular, probably a sphere, and the other was an elongated rectangle, probably a cylinder, like a rocket body. I got several glimpses between watching the traffic. I was surprised it was not on the news because it was so obvious. The objects were descending, not much at first but it was easy to tell that the descent was like a parabolic curve because the last I saw them the attitude was almost directly down and they had moved from 11 o'clock in the sky to about 9:30. The objects had cone-like vapor trails. The cylinder was at an oblique angle to the direction of travel and to the cone trail. Their final direction was SE sort of towards Mt. Hamilton but much further away I think. The entire incident was less than 30 seconds probably about 10 to 15 seconds. By the time I got to the next offramp they were gone. The size of the cylinder and cone-trail was about a little bigger than a full moon, maybe larger as it descended. The sphere's cone trail was roughly about ¼ as big as the cylinder's cone trail. It was hard to see the sphere and cylinder, sort of like a very distant, high altitude jet. Together they occupied a section of sky about 4 to 8 moons across. They traveled pretty much together even though their relation to each may have changed some. They were not attached, but probably were attached at one time. It looked like a reentering rocket and satellite that would crash somewhere. If needed I may be able to give a good date and line up from the freeway to some hills and the objects.
First of all I have seen an upper atmosphere/space vehicle launch from Vandenberg AFB when I was in San Diego and noticed the perfect cone of the rocket exhaust. Now that was similar to what I saw on this day except they appeared to be reentering. In San Francisco driving south on Highway 101 before Silver Street, I saw in the upper atmosphere at about 11 o'clock and to the southeast two objects. One was circular, probably a sphere, and the other was an elongated rectangle, probably a cylinder, like a rocket body. I got several glimpses between watching the traffic. I was surprised it was not on the news because it was so obvious. The objects were descending, not much at first but it was easy to tell that the descent was like a parabolic curve because the last I saw them the attitude was almost directly down and they had moved from 11 o'clock in the sky to about 9:30. The objects had cone-like vapor trails. The cylinder was at an oblique angle to the direction of travel and to the cone trail. Their final direction was SE sort of towards Mt. Hamilton but much further away I think. The entire incident was less than 30 seconds probably about 10 to 15 seconds. By the time I got to the next offramp they were gone. The size of the cylinder and cone-trail was about a little bigger than a full moon, maybe larger as it descended. The sphere's cone trail was roughly about ¼ as big as the cylinder's cone trail. It was hard to see the sphere and cylinder, sort of like a very distant, high altitude jet. Together they occupied a section of sky about 4 to 8 moons across. They traveled pretty much together even though their relation to each may have changed some. They were not attached, but probably were attached at one time. It looked like a reentering rocket and satellite that would crash somewhere. If needed I may be able to give a good date and line up from the freeway to some hills and the objects.
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San Francisco
USA
20 seconds
20 seconds
37.77
-122.42
other
CA
Occurred : 12/1/1997 12:00 (Entered as : 12/97 12:00) Reported: 8/8/1999 03:08 Posted: 8/10/1999 Location: San Francisco (Observed from), CA Shape: Other Duration: 20 seconds Characteristics: The object left a trail, The object landed
Large sphere and cylinder space junk reentering atmosphere southeasterly of San Francisco probably in Central Valley or Nevada.