Social media exploded on Saturday night amid mass sightings of what appeared to be a UFO across southern California, with many users uploading videos and pictures on Twitter and Facebook.
According to officials, however, the mysterious bright lights seen in the sky were a scheduled Trident II (D5) missile test flight at sea just off the coast of Southern California.
This ties in with the recent announcement of mysterious military tests taking place near Los Angeles International Airport (LAX), where all flights landing at the airport are being re-routed for the next week to accommodate the secretive operations.
The missile test on Saturday night took everybody by surprise due to the secretive nature of what the military are doing in Los Angeles. They haven’t announced what they have planned for the week ahead.
Stuff.co.nz reports:
The test was part of a scheduled, ongoing system evaluation test, Commander Ryan Perry with the Navy’s Third Fleet told the Union-Tribune.
The #UFO is showing up in reports and photos from #Arizona and #California (from SF to LA and San Diego). pic.twitter.com/D76Gck7RVg
— Michael Oman-Reagan (@OmanReagan) November 8, 2015
Perry said launches are conducted on a frequent, recurring basis to ensure the continued reliability of the system. “Each test activity provides valuable information about our systems, thus contributing to assurance in our capabilities,” he said in a statement.
Witnesses across Southern California and Arizona posted video and reported seeing the light, and many used hashtags such as #ufo and #comet as they speculated about its source.