2001-12-14 - Arcadia, CA - Light

Large, bright stationary light in sky over eastern LA county.

As I left my office about 10pm I looked up into a clear sky in the east, and noticed a bright manilla colored light about 45 degrees above the horizon. This is also a view of the approach to LAX so you see the various aircraft at their various levels during approach. This light was much larger and much brighter than the lights of the approaching aircraft. The light, at that distance was about 3/8 inches in diameter, and did not appear to be moving, as the other aircraft on approach were. I took a minute or so to look at it, tried to figure out what it might be and when I couldn't left. On my way home, I stopped to get something to eat which took about a half hour. When I got home and out of the car, I couldn't help but notice it was still there...still unmoving...total elapsed time from my first sighting of it was no about 1 hr. It was east of the belt stars of Orion. Being an amature astronomer I first tried to equate as an astonomical body but couldn't. It was much larger than Jupiter and Saturn which had already set by this time. It was too large and too yellow for Venus. It's color was like that of Saturn through a telescope. I ruled out astonomical and commercial aircraft. I gave up for the night and went in and went to bed. When I turned on the Coast to Coast program to listen to until falling asleep a guy called in from Santa Barbara and told the host (AB) about it. He said he and some friends were leaving an eatery in Santa Barbara when they spotted it. He described it exactly as I saw it to AB who began to ridicule him. He finally got angry and told the host to go out and look into the eastern sky about 30 degrees above the horizon. Finally the host said he'd do it at the next break. Given Santa Barbaras proximity to Los Angeles, it would have appeared lower on the horizon than it did from my vantage point. Unfortunately, I don't believe the show host could've seen it from his desert location. My best guess is that the farthest east it could've been would have been Palm Springs, CA. I hate trying to guesstimate distances and heights but I'd say it was probaby at about 7000 ft over the area of Riverside or maybe even further west. To rule out an astronomical body, I went outside the following night at the same time and there was nothing there. Had it been astonomical in nature it would have been there for a number of nights at least. I rued out a law enforcement helicopter which are prevalant in the area because they away's circle or move in some way...this object simply wasn't moving.

((NUFORC Note: We do not know what the witness may have been observing. However, we note that Jupiter currently is very prominent in the eastern sky during the early evening, and that it "rises" in the sky toward the zenith throughout the evening. Unless there were two, prominent bright lights in the eastern sky, our first guess is that the observer might have been looking at Jupiter. PD))