# Was that a missile flying over CA Saturday night?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-that-a-missile-flying-over-ca-saturday-night/3644>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [October 3, 1999, 7:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-that-a-missile-flying-over-ca-saturday-night/3644 "1999-10-03T07:50:00Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 5\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Louie](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/c68b51/32.png) [@Louie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Louie)\
**Post date:** [October 3, 1999, 7:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-that-a-missile-flying-over-ca-saturday-night/3644/1 "1999-10-03T07:50:00Z")

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At around 7:00pm Saturday, I saw in the northwest part of the sky a trail of white smoke shooting up in the air, kind of like those trails jets leave behind. Some seconds later, a bright comet-like object zoomed out of the trail and glided across the sky for around a minute. After that, the bright object turned into that white smoke again and ended, probably desenegrated.

What the hell was that thing? A missle? A high-flying flare? What was it?

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**Author:** ![elrayoX](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/278dde/32.png) [@elrayoX](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elrayoX)\
**Post date:** [October 3, 1999, 10:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-that-a-missile-flying-over-ca-saturday-night/3644/2 "1999-10-03T10:23:00Z")

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It was a Star Wars test. This was Regan’s Star Wars, as in stratagic defense initisive, not Lucas.

[http://www.detnews.com/1999/nation/9910/02/10020104.htm](http://www.detnews.com/1999/nation/9910/02/10020104.htm)

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**Author:** ![whitetho](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/whitetho/32/1059_2.png) [@whitetho](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/whitetho)\
**Post date:** [October 3, 1999, 10:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-that-a-missile-flying-over-ca-saturday-night/3644/3 "1999-10-03T10:57:00Z")

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CORRECTED URL: [Missile interceptor passes key test](http://www.cnn.com/US/9910/12/missile.defense.test.ap/index.html).

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**Author:** ![whitetho](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/whitetho/32/1059_2.png) [@whitetho](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/whitetho)\
**Post date:** [October 3, 1999, 11:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-that-a-missile-flying-over-ca-saturday-night/3644/4 "1999-10-03T11:00:00Z")

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Great. Okay, THIRD TRY IS THE CAHRM: [Missile interceptor passes key test](http://www.cnn.com/US/9910/02/missile.defense.test.ap/index.html).

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**Author:** ![Louie](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/c68b51/32.png) [@Louie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Louie)\
**Post date:** [October 4, 1999, 12:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-that-a-missile-flying-over-ca-saturday-night/3644/5 "1999-10-04T00:30:00Z")

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So it was a missle. Cool.