2010-07-29 - Arcadia, CA - Light

Bright Light That Changed Intensity and Color, Then Disappeared

I arrived at my home in the northern San Gabriel Valley on the night of Thursday 29 July 2010 at 21:10 PDT. As is my habit, when I got out of the car I looked up and surveyed the nighttime sky. Looking in a south-easterly direction I noticed what looked to be an airplane. Again, as is my habit, I looked for the FAA lights (blinking red and green lights). I did not see any. The light was pretty bright, so it's possible that, due to the angle and the brightness of the light, I just couldn't see them. I also noticed the speed, which seemed relatively normal for an airplane. The trajectory was mostly straight, though for a moment I could have sworn that I saw it drift to the east just a bit. This could have been an optical illusion. However, over the course of the 20 or so seconds that I was watching, I saw the light increase in brilliance. The object seemed to get bigger, though this might have been an effect of the increasing luminosity, changing from an off-w! hite color to more of a resplendent white. This lasted about 5 seconds, after which the light dimmed, making the object seem as if it were getting smaller. As it dimmed it became blue, like so many stars. What was left, for a moment, was a dim dot of light surrounded by an even fainter corona; it resembled the dot of light that would be left in the center of the screen on old black-and-white televisions immediately after being turned off. This lasted for just a moment, after which the dot became smaller and dimmer, until disappearing altogether. I kept looking at the sky for at least another ten minutes, in case it was an airplane that had turned it's lights off momentarily, but the light did not reappear. I could not see the outline of any kind of craft, nor was there a sound to be heard.