Weird light in the sky I saw recently.

[GreenPartyVoter]

It was so bright, I thought it was the neighbor's deck lights. Then I realized the shape was wrong. It was wider toward the ground and the start point was up in the sky. It looked at first like a cone shape in smoke. It had a definite start point in mid-air and widened to a larger angle. There was smoke or a cloud around it, which could be seen in the brilliant white light. It was moving upward at an angle. I thought at one point I was watching a rocket launching because it was so bright and smoky all at once. (Although it didn't exactly have the same quality as a rocket. The light was much more like a flashlight beam and did not sputter.)

Then the point of light turned off and the smoke/cloud expanded, but there still seemed to be an inner illumination within the cloud. It should have just been a dark blob in the sky, but I could still see definition in the middle of the cloud because it was lit up with a faint light from within. Then the light and then smoke slowly disappeared.

I thought it might have been a chopper flying or even exploding, but there was no sound. Very, very strange. Maybe it was a flare?? The Maritime Academy is right near here. Maybe they were doing some sort of night rescue practice?

[TreasonousBastard]

1. How recently? Last Saturday night there was a similar light...

that caused a stir around here.

Turned out it was an experimental rocket sent up from somewhere in Virginia. The cloud was some sort of liquid it blew out so they could measure its dipersal.

[GreenPartyVoter]

2. Yeah, I think it was Saturday.

[TreasonousBastard]

3. Then that was it-- just after sunset. I was at the local observatory...

that night, and we got calls about it.

People were freaked out.

[Orsino]

4. I used to see those things, sometimes, when I lived in Virginia.

Wallops Island, probably.

[TreasonousBastard]

7. That's it! You jogged my memory, and...

here's their page:
http://www.nasa.gov/centers/wallops/home/index.html

[GreenPartyVoter]

5. Sounds about right, then. Do you know where I could find articles about it? I'd love to read more.

[TreasonousBastard]

6. Here 'tis...

http://www.nasa.gov/centers/wallops/home/index.html

[GreenPartyVoter]

8. Very cool. I have passed this on to others who apparently saw it as well.