3 case files, newest first.
At 7:21 p.m. on October 7, 2018, people across metro Phoenix photographed a strange glowing streak in the western sky. It was a Falcon 9 launched from Vandenberg in California, lit by a sun that had set over Arizona more than an hour earlier, and its first stage flew back to land at the base for the first time.
At dusk on December 22, 2017, a glowing, branching cloud crossed the Southern California sky and stopped traffic on the freeways. The Los Angeles Fire Department had to explain it: a Falcon 9 launch from Vandenberg. AP reported it was seen as far away as Phoenix.
Just after 7 p.m. on September 28, 2025, a long, glowing streak drifted across Arizona from Flagstaff to Tucson, and some people asked if it was a comet. It was a Falcon 9 that had launched from Vandenberg a few minutes earlier, lit by a sun that had already set.
