2005-04-29 - Jacksonville, FL - Light

White light, moving slowly that suddenly expands like a brilliant firework circle, then retracts and separates forming two white lights

A slow moving, non-blinking, white light caught my attention in the sky. Moving North and in the NE sky about 25 degrees up. I see planes at night all the time in the same area, in fact there were 2 planes much further south in the sky at the same time.

After watching it slowly move North on a flat plane for about 45 seconds, the light started getting brighter and then suddenly a brilliant white flash expanded from the light that looked almost identical to a perfect fireworks circle. The expansion was fast and stayed full circle for at least 5 seconds then slowly retracted to the original light.

Then a separation occured, and the one light became two. The second, slightly less bright was also moving in the same direction, but ever so slowly falling further behind (but staying on a flat plane). After I could see no longer (behind trees) I quickly ran inside and checked the internet to see if the shuttle, or some other rocket had launched from Cape Canaveral. Can't find any info about any launchings.

((NUFORC Note: We assume that the witness describes above the launch of a Titan IV missile out of Cape Canaveral, which occurred at 20:55 hrs. (Eastern) on this date. The missile apparently was launched to the northeast, so it was visible along the eastern shoreline of the U. S.. PD))