2022-12-16 - Santa Barbara, CA - Unknown

Orange glow across sky, then bright orange/fire colored object rising upwards and disappearing into night sky

I was in a Lyft on the way from Agoura Hills up to the Santa Barbara airport. It was the middle of the night and very dark. The driver and I were having good conversation, when suddenly she just pointed to the sky and we both went silent. We couldn’t make sense of what we were seeing. The sky was filled with a horizontal, orange glow. Then, seemingly out of nowhere, a very, very brightly lighted object appeared and rose into the sky, disappearing into the night. It almost looked as though it had fire trailing after it, but not a long trail. It all happened very fast, as it seemed to disappear into the dark clouds. After that, both the driver and I kept searching the sky, wondering if we would see it again. We had no idea what it was, and the remainder of the ride was fully comprised of discussion about it. After the first sighting, we did see it again about two minutes later, but we did not see an object. We only saw that same orange hue in the sky. A horizontal glow. The Lyft driver thought she saw it a third time a few minutes later, just for a second, but I didn’t see that one. We kept talking about it, trying to make sense of it. We thought perhaps it was a missile or rocket or something, but that didn’t make sense, and it didn’t align with what we had seen. It was the orange horizontal glow across the sky that was very distinct and strange. We had no idea what it was, but by the end of the ride, we both agreed that it must have been a UFO. Neither of us had any ever seen anything like it in our entire lives.
(I only finally thought to make a video by the time the Lyft driver thought she saw it a third time, but even though I wasn’t able to catch it, I figure I’ll upload it anyway. I also have a recording of us when we saw the first two.)