SATURDAY NIGHT FIREBALL BRINGS CONCERN AND SPECULATION

Panic and speculation spread Saturday night when a bright white light shot through the night skies in Southern California. Residents posted a flurry of videos on social media, together with theories of aliens or meteors while others made panicked telephone calls. U.S. military officials said. It was a planned missile test. The Navy Strategic Systems Programs held a scheduled missile test flight at sea from USS Kentucky, which is a ballistic missile submarine. The test was conducted off the coast of Southern California. The Pentagon said the missile was not armed. “The tests were part of a scheduled, ongoing system evaluation test,” a statement said. “Launches are conducted on a frequent, recurring basis to ensure the continued reliability of the system. One local witness said, “It looked like a gold shooting star, It went from gold and small, burning for a few minutes and turned into this blue spot light. Like at an event held at night—not like shooting out at us, but a white bright light. What was weird, the tail was light and wide and it got bluer and bluer. Then it just burned out and went away.” There may be more, Los Angeles International Airport issued a statement about the military testing. “The military airspace to the west of LAX will be active for one week, creating traffic route limitations and requiring LAX to temporarily deviate from over-ocean operations, the military test will continue until November 12.”