2008-08-23 - Thousand Oaks, CA - Oval

Bright blue flare enters atmosphere, quickly shifts horizontal, gains altitude for 7 secs, blinks blue 24 times while descending fully

Thousand Oaks, CA. We were on a hike at 10:45pm at the Southern end of Moorpark Ave, half way up the "bench trail." While looking North , a friend and I noticed a large meteor with a cobalt blue flare, which entered the atmosphere from East to West at about a 130 degree angle, one of the most large flares that I have ever witnessed. It seemed to burn out briefly however reignited at the same intensity, which caught our attn (since normally you would expect a meteor to burn out). However while still approaching the horizon at a fast speed, we’re thinking it’s going to hit the ground, however the blue flare suddenly shifted horizontally (cardinal West) and faded to an faint orange dot (similar in size to viewing a satellite in orbit with the naked eye). Visibility was great since we were well removed from any city lights; the Milky Way was faintly visible, which for So Cal Suburbs is normally rare.

This orange dot then reversed completely 180 degrees then arced slowly counterclockwise to 0 degrees and rose in altitude quite a distance(for about 5-7 seconds). More amazingly is when we saw the same cobalt blue flare return (more oval shaped without the entry trail) and blink every second for a total of 24 blinks as it lowered to the horizon and behind a hill between our city and a neighboring community. It was difficult to gauge the distance of the object from us, but looked to be within the local vicinity, possibly as far as Fillmore, directly North. Not knowing the actual size of this object, this could have been further North, as far as Bakersfield. The total event took all of 40-45 seconds, ending as it lowered behind the mountain range to the North.