It's Not Rocket Science....No, Wait...It is !

I went outside last night to empty the 'bagless' bag on our sweeper and noticed something weird in the sky.  Over in the West, about halfway up the sky was some weird yellow-orange light.  My first thought was a helicopter but there was no noise.  I stood there for a minute, watching as it traveled East, towards me.  Then, I could see trailing white 'sparkles' like a long comet tail - like something out of Star Trek.  As it got almost in front of me, the light went out, a moment later a puff of smoke, complete with expanding smoke ring and the yellow-white light was on again.  Very weird, very cool.  I didn't have time to get a camera and it wouldn't have taken anyway as none of my cameras are good in low light. 
This morning, I told Charlene about it (she was at work when I saw this) and described it just like above.  My thought at this point was that it was some space junk re-entering the atmosphere.  But it was a little too weird for that.  I 'Googled' it and the only mention was on a UFO Sighting website.  There were 3 different sightings reported from Los Angeles area and Simi Valley, both 40-60 miles away.  That was a dead give-away that it was something way, way up in the sky, not an airplane.  From time to time, Southern California gets some strange, weird sightings or reports of a 'different' kind.  No, they're not crazy, we just remember that the 'Skunkworks' is out here and they make the latest and greatest top secret flying stuff.  But what was it that I saw?  I checked all through the paper this morning and not a word.  Damn it!

I jumped on Google again and typed in "rocket launch at Vandenberg Air Force Base".  That's the place where the government launches rockets on the West Coast of the U.S.  It's about 90 miles due west of Ventura.  I've been there many times in the past doing network stuff so I was hoping maybe they had a launch.  Bingo!  Vandenberg launched a Minotaur VI Rocket at 9:41 last night sending a 'space junk locating' satellite into orbit.  The launch path takes it up, east and south which is the path I saw.  Luckily, someone in Ventura has a better camera than I do and captured the following video. The focus wasn't good on the rocket so you'll see a slightly out of focus view of what I saw - except he didn't get the 2nd stage ignition which made the puff of smoke and smoke ring.....that was right after this clip ends............  enjoy science.