Light in sky lights up social media
SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket seen in San Diego County
A speculator glowing streak over Southern California sparked a flurry of cell phone photos and social media speculations Friday night.
An alien attack? A meteor? Santa test-driving a souped-up sleigh?
Actually, it was a contrail from a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket launched from Vandenberg Air Force Base at 5:27 p.m. The 18th and final SpaceX mission of the year brought 10 satellites into space, and the clear sky and twilight hour combined to put on quite a show over San Diego County.
At the San Diego Police Department, watch commander Officer Robert Heims said a few officers called in wondering what they had seen in the sky. By then, he said he had been alerted through department communications that there had been a two-stage rocket launch that night, and officers should pass the news along to any concerned citizens.
San Diegan Lisa Johnson Kogan spotted the contrail, aimed her camera and began live-streaming on Facebook.
“What’s going on?” and “What the hell?” were among the immediate replies.
Camp Pendleton took to Twitter to let people know they had nothing to do with what people were seeing.
“For those asking, the lights are not from Camp Pendleton,” read a tweet from the base , adding that the “beautiful images” were courtesy of SpaceX.
Some people posted and tweeted that they would have appreciated some kind of heads-up to avoid a celestial freak-out. In fairness, SpaceX founder Elon Musk himself tweeted “Launch underway” immediately after a 60-second countdown alert from @SpaceX.
Joining in on the fun, Musk later posted a video of the contrail with the tweet, “Nuclear alien UFO from North Korea.”
Some photos on Twitter came from as far east as Arizona, where the streak also could be seen.
Dana Fadlalla saw the streak in the sky from Coronado.
“People had theories it was North Korea, and my nephew thought the sky was falling,” Fadlalla said.
Beth Chee of Mission Valley said, “It was so cool, but I was kind of hoping it was aliens.”
The 10 satellites launched Friday will be part of a constellation operated by Iridium Communications, which plans to have 81 satellites in all.
SpaceX’s last Iridium mission from Vandenberg Air Force Base was Oct. 9, when it also launched a set of 10 Iridium NEXT satellites into orbit.
Staff writer Gary Robbins contributed to this report.
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