'UFO' over Los Angeles on Saturday night revealed to be Trident missile launched by US Navy

Californians were left mystified by a strange light streaking across the sky

Missile across the sky in Los Angeles (Julien Solomita )

A mysterious huge light streaked across the sky above Los Angeles on Saturday night, startling thousands of Americans.

The cone-shaped blaze powered through the sky above Orange County at around 6pm local time, leading to speculation online as to what it could be and prompting calls to officials.

The National Weather Service in Hanford, California said it had received numerous reports from concerned residents. The strange light was reported to be seen as far away as Arizona.

As speculation mounted, the Orange County sheriff’s office took to their official Twitter account to confirm the light had come from a missile launched as part of a naval test fire.

The blazing coloured light was captured by a group of vloggers, who were filming the night sky from the top of a car park, capturing the whole thing on video. The group was walking back to the car when they saw the unusual light in the sky.

At 1.27s into the video, the small blue aurora light gets bigger in size and turns white. Then after two minutes, the light has dispersed so wide that it disappears.

Julien Solomita, who uploaded the video to YouTube, said it was “a suspicious orange looking light moving fast”.

He ends the video saying: “It was easily the craziest thing I’ve witnessed.”

American singer Josh Groban took to Twitter to share his images of the lights, describing it as a "bell shaped cloud".

Actress Lena Dunham took photos of the lights and shared them on her Instagram page, asking "Can anyone explain it...was I abducted!?"

 

My friend Ian and I just saw this in the sky above east LA. Can anyone explain it? Seriously it was a blue ball of light that spread wider and wider for about a minute then faded as the center continued to travel. Was I abducted!?

A photo posted by Lena Dunham (@lenadunham) on Nov 7, 2015 at 6:24pm PST

A spokesperson from the US Navy confirmed that the missile was launched from a submarine and was not armed.

In a statement from Navy Cmdr. Ryan Perry, he said: “Navy Strategic Systems Programs conducted schedules Trident II (D5) missile test flight at sea from USS Kentucky, an Ohio Class SSBN, in the Pacific Test Range off the coast of Southern California”.

He went on to say “The tests were part of a scheduled, on-going system evaluation test”.

The Trident II is a submarine-launched ballistic missile and the Navy dos not typically announce missile tests, and information prior to tests of Trident II missiles is classified.