Subj:	Odd sky light
Date:	2/17/01 1:19:07 AM Pacific Standard Time
From:  To:    bardsquill@aol.com

While stargazing with two friends in Burbank CA, we observed a white line
several thousand feet high transversing the sky from north to south.  There
were no objects at either end, it then moved across the sky at a brisk pace
west to east, retaining it’s form. I have observed many contrails, and this
was different, it moved retaining it’s shape, (no windrift shape change or
spreading).  As it passed the visible planets Jupiter, Saturn and the stars
Aldebarab and Sirius it occluded them, but a private plane flew overhead
about 2-3 thousand feet on the flight path from Burbank airport and the
plane was much lower than the beam.

It was hard to determine if it was a cloud or a beam of light.  It may have
been the edge of an ‘O’ ring type formation of which we could only see one
edge, (radar ring?).  This comes on the night following the Bombing of Iraq
and several Russian missle tests.  None of us have ever seen anything
similar in over forty years each.