I have just witnessed quite the spectacle. About 15 minutes ago, I saw something strange outside of the Encinitas Ca Starbucks on the 101. In the twilight sky over the vast Pacific a UFO appeared. Screaming up from the horizon the strange object slowed abruptly and than continued on it's path South-Southeast. At the place where it slowed a large smoke plume appeared which seemed to get brighter as the sky darkened. Fortunately I had my new W600i camera phone. I snapped 8 pics and used the phones wireless modem feature to link up to the EDGE network and send them to Flickr.

I watched as the object seemed to emit some type of vapor sporadically as it trailed off. This was definitely not a comet and had to have been something engineered... upon further review it must have been a satellite being launched from somewhere in the Pacific I'm very curious to see if there were any other sightings. As far as the validity of these photos go, I know the quality is poor but check out the upload timestamps on Flickr. If there were other sightings, this could easily be verified. Crazy stuff.

Update

It is now confirmed that this was no UFO, nay it was a Delta IV rocket launching a NROL-22 reconnaissance satellite into orbit. Here's the press release.

It was launched from Vandenburg AFB just north of Santa Barbara. I'm glad it wasn't aliens or the Koreans...