2017-08-08 - Victorville, CA - Changing

My wife and I were watching the sun go down, facing west, on a cloudless evening. I noticed a very bright, relatively spherical, light hovering in the same spot for about 5 to 8 minutes due west. It is difficult to say exactly where it was hovering, because I have no idea how large it actually was, so perhaps somewhere between Adelanto and Lancaster.

It was not especially high in the sky, appearing just over the view of the homes across the street from us, no higher than an average helicopter height, but it did not move at all like a helicopter, nor did it have any sound. If it had been a helicopter it would have been closer to where we sat based on the perspective of its position and relative size to the homes and we would have heard a sound, seen its lights and the manner that it moved.

It began to slowly change directions and altitude getting higher and heading north. As it did, the light extended out looking more like a rocket's contrail; however you could faintly see a dark elongated shape in front of the contrail. It did not accelerate quickly or move in an exaggerated way, rather it steadily gained altitude, steadily moved in a north-easterly direction, and the contrail continued to elongate and stayed quite bright almost white. In other words although it resembled a rocket's contrail it never had a fiery look. As it reached a zenith height of what I estimate to be approximately 10 to 15 miles its contrail began to fade until it simply faded out and vanished. There were no clouds to obscure it, no darkness to cover it, it simply disappeared, but slowly as if it were erased bit by bit.

I know of no known rocket that can hover and then proceed to leave the atmosphere at such a relatively slow controlled pace, let alone disappear or fade out.