Nebula in the Sky??

This is something that has been driving me crazy forever and i hope one of you can help me or i can shed some light on a strange phenomenon a friend and i saw. Im guessing this was sometime during the summer or early fall of 2001. A friend and i were bored one night and had nothing to do so we decided to go down to a bike trail that runs along the american river. We hung out and probly around 11pm or so decided to start heading back to my car. probly 2 mins into the walk a bright flash lights up everything surrounding us and we were stunned thinking a helicopter had shined its spotlight onto us. we quickly realized this was not the case as we looked up through the trees in the direction of the light. we realized it was not a spotlight and was illuminating everything kinda like a full moon but about 10x brighter. as we looked up what appeared to be a bright light quickly expanded into an oval shape that took up roughly an area about 20 times the size of the moon but oval shaped. it looked like an orange nebula u might see from a hubble picture. it then began to shrink back down into a bright circular point of light about the size of the moon then it flicked out into a long horizantil flash very simliar to when u turn off an old tube tv. the total time of the event lasted roughly 5-10 sec's. there was nothing in the news, online, or callers on coast to coast talking about this anomoly which had to be seen by the whole westcoast of the US.

[edit on 3-7-2008 by TheScale]

Any comments or thoughts on this would be greatly appreciated. Cause to this day i cannot explain what this space anomoly was and if u have any questions about the event id be happy to respond to them

Initially I thought what you were describing could be associated with aurora but not as you continued your description, especially the part at the end.

I do remember the light that the old tube TVs used to make... I spent many an hour turning the TV on and off to see it.

No other ideas from me, but thumbs up.... great sighting whatever it was.

[edit on 3-7-2008 by Shambles]