Bright Stationary Object off Ocean Beach San Diego
I was out walking on the Ocean Beach Pier. There is a great deal of commercial and military air traffic in this area, so I was watching the sky. As I watched I saw what I first thought was a regular aircraft light, i.e. a commercial airliner "headlight".
As I watched though the light increased n brightness. It was a lightly clouded evening and this object was positioned so that it was ringed (as though it were in the center -the doughnut hole- of a "doughnut-lke" cloud formation). It was a very dark night, I'm not sure if it was a new moon or the moon had already set.
I could not tell the distance, but it seemed clearly too far for even an airliner light source to be so bright. Also it appeared to be stationary for the duration of my sighting. It became bright enough to illuminate the surrounding edges of the cloud formation that it was in. It grew and diminished slighty in brightness, until it eventually disappeared (it seemed to have 'winked out' rather than sped off).
Very shortly after the lght's disappearence, a smaller plane, what I would perceive as a military or private sized plane (I do not know which), passed very quickly through an closely adjacent region of the sky. This craft did not appear to be the same object, but I presumed was there to 'check out' the light. I am not sure of this this is pure speculation.
I consider myself a relatively competent observer (I am a visual artist), and I was a bit taken aback by the prominence of ths object in the night sky.
I was out walking on the Ocean Beach Pier. There is a great deal of commercial and military air traffic in this area, so I was watching the sky. As I watched I saw what I first thought was a regular aircraft light, i.e. a commercial airliner "headlight".
As I watched though the light increased n brightness. It was a lightly clouded evening and this object was positioned so that it was ringed (as though it were in the center -the doughnut hole- of a "doughnut-lke" cloud formation). It was a very dark night, I'm not sure if it was a new moon or the moon had already set.
I could not tell the distance, but it seemed clearly too far for even an airliner light source to be so bright. Also it appeared to be stationary for the duration of my sighting. It became bright enough to illuminate the surrounding edges of the cloud formation that it was in. It grew and diminished slighty in brightness, until it eventually disappeared (it seemed to have 'winked out' rather than sped off).
Very shortly after the lght's disappearence, a smaller plane, what I would perceive as a military or private sized plane (I do not know which), passed very quickly through an closely adjacent region of the sky. This craft did not appear to be the same object, but I presumed was there to 'check out' the light. I am not sure of this this is pure speculation.
I consider myself a relatively competent observer (I am a visual artist), and I was a bit taken aback by the prominence of ths object in the night sky.
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Off
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San Diego
USA
3-4 minutes
3-4 minutes
32.84
-117.16
light
CA
Occurred : 4/7/2002 02:00 (Entered as : 04/07/02 02:00) Reported: 5/22/2002 8:42:21 AM 08:42 Posted: 6/12/2002 Location: San Diego, CA Shape: Light Duration: 3-4 minutes Characteristics: There were aircraft in the vicinity or aircraft chasing the object
Bright Stationary Object off Ocean Beach San Diego