Mysterious light seen from Las Vegas came from missile test, Navy says

The mysterious light spotted over Las Vegas and other parts of the West came from a Trident missile test-fired by the Navy off the coast of California, according to the San Diego Union-Tribune.

The test flight was conducted from the Kentucky, an Ohio-class ballistic missile submarine, in the Pacific Test Range, a Navy spokesman said.

These tests are frequent, not routinely announced and used to ensure the reliability of the system, according to Cmdr. Ryan Perry with the Navy's Third Fleet.

The light was originally believed to be a part of the Taurid meteor shower, but an astrophysicist at UC San Diego said the meteors would have been coming from the east and wouldn't appear until about midnight.

Military activity forces L.A. airport to detour night flights

Nighttime flights into and out of Los Angeles International Airport will avoid passing over the Pacific Ocean just to the west of the airport for the coming week because the U.S. military has activated airspace there, Reuters reported Saturday.

The Federal Aviation Administration and the military did not disclose the nature of the activities taking place near the second-busiest U.S. airport.

Airplanes normally fly over the ocean when arriving and departing the coastal Los Angeles International Airport during the night to avoid disturbing nearby residents, airport officials said in a statement.

But the FAA has indicated that military airspace over that patch of ocean was activated beginning on Friday night and continuing through Thursday night, airport officials said.

As a result, the airport will need to deviate from normal flight patterns during the next six nights, the statement said.

Contact Lawren Linehan at llinehan@reviewjournal.com or at 702-383-0391. Find her on Twitter: @lawrenlinehan.