California witnesses unusual beams of light in the sky, puzzling observers

Mysterious streaks of light were seen across the sky in the Sacramento area Friday night, surprising St. Patrick’s Day revelers. It was Patrick who later posted a video on social media of the sudden sight.

Jaime Hernandez is behind King Kong Brewing Company in Sacramento for St. Patrick’s Day celebrations. Patrick when some of the group saw the lights. Hernandez quickly started filming. On Saturday he said it finished in about 40 seconds.

“We are mostly shocked, but amazed that we are witnessing this,” Hernandez said by email. “None of us have ever seen anything like it.”

The brewery owner posted a video of Hernandez on Instagram, asking if anyone could solve the mystery.

Jonathan McDowell says he can. McDowell is an astronomer at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics. McDowell said Saturday in an interview with The Associated Press that he was 99.9% sure that the streak of light came from burning space debris.

McDowell said the Japanese communications package that transmits information from the International Space Station to a communications satellite and back to Earth became obsolete in 2017 when the satellite stopped working. McDowell added that the equipment, which weighs 310 kilograms (683 pounds), was removed from the space station in 2020 because it was taking up valuable space and would burn to the ground when it was returned.

The burning pieces of the wreckage created a “amazing light show in the sky,” McDowell said, and he estimated the height of the wreckage was about 40 miles, traveling thousands of miles per hour.

He added that the US Space Force confirmed a return trajectory over California for the interorbital communication system, and the timing matched what people were seeing in the sky. The Space Force could not immediately be reached Saturday with questions.

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McDermott reporting from Providence, Rhode Island.