At the above date and approximate time, I was travelling northbound on Interstate 5 in south Orange County, CA area. It was early to mid-dusk. The sky was cloudless. I observed two white jet trails, much shorter than what is normally seen and could just barely make out a craft at the front of each trail. What caught my attention was that neither the jet trails nor the small objects in front(presumably an aircraft of some type) were moving. They appeared to be absolutely stationary!! It would be hard to estimate the altitude but I would guess 5-10 miles. The craft/jet trails were positioned where it appeared that had the craft been moving, it would be travelling from north to south. As stated above the jet trails were white in color but were unusually short, much shorter than what is commonly seen. From my perspective, they were both an inch to an inch an half in length. Additionally, they did not appear to disperse from the effects of the wind, as would normally be expected. The jet trails were not close together, separated by about 15-20 degrees horizontally. Since I was driving a vehicle, I had to divert my view briefly in order to drive safely. At one point, I looked up and the plane/jet trail to my right completely disappeared! I scanned the sky in the vicinity of where I had seen it and it was totally absent. I had just seen it a few seconds previously. The object to my left was still visible. After about a minute, the object to my left then completely disappeared. In both cases there were no remnants of the white jet trail as is normally seen. I am an investigator with an agency of the federal government, in my early 50s and married. I have BS degree in Aeronautics.
((NUFORC Note: We do not know what the witness witnessed. We suspect he may have been observing the contrails behind aircraft, which simply entered an area of the sky where contrail formation didn't occur. However, given his background in aeronautics, we have to presume that he had allowed for that possibility. PD))
((NUFORC Note: We do not know what the witness witnessed. We suspect he may have been observing the contrails behind aircraft, which simply entered an area of the sky where contrail formation didn't occur. However, given his background in aeronautics, we have to presume that he had allowed for that possibility. PD))
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Yes
Irvine
USA
5 minutes
5 minutes
33.68
-117.79
unknown
CA
Occurred : 3/13/2001 17:20 (Entered as : 03/13/01 17:20) Reported: 3/14/2001 14:26 Posted: 3/16/2001 Location: Irvine, CA Shape: Unknown Duration: 5 minutes Characteristics: The object left a trail
At the above date and approximate time, I was travelling northbound on Interstate 5 in south Orange County, CA area. It was early to m