1998-12-05 - Marina del Rey, CA - Unknown

While walking with three other witnesses at about dusk, I viewed a contrail headed toward me from a direct West compass heading. The object looked as if it were decending from a long way out (very long contrail) and as it approached to about 90 degrees overhead the familiar offing of bright "sparking" which might normally be viewed coming from the nose of a missile or Space Shuttle upon re-entry into the high atmosphere. When the contrail hit 90 degrees, it vanished indicating that any object (unseen) might have entered or exited friction points.

At the same time the contrail was being observed, a Boeing 747 was in a landing patern bound for Los Angeles Airport. This aircraft was flying at a ruduced speed at about 12,000 feet along the same direction nearly crossing the path of the higher contrail. The object creating the contrail was clearly moving at four to five times the speed as the 747 from our vantage point.

((NUFORC: Sighting occurred at the time of an airlaunch of a Pegasus missile from an aircraft located approximately 70 miles to the southwest of Monterey, CA.))