She's sluggish on impulse power

About an hour and a half ago, I witnessed this in the skies above the bay area:

•      In my peripheral vision, a bright light resembling venus about 75 degrees above the horizon and slightly northwest of my head
•      I looked up, thinking it was venus/airliner/etc.
•      After staring both directly, and slightly off-center (night vision trick that thwarts the rods and cones in the back of your eyeballs and the blind spot caused by the attachment of your optic nerve which you typically don't notice because your brain lies to you, and, let's face it, your brain and everyone else is lying to you) I determined that the light was not stationary and was moving vertically
•      No position lights, no running lights, no strobes, no landing lights
•      Not moving laterally across the sky like a satellite. Again, moving vertically
•      The brightness (which appeared to be exhaust from some kind of engine, but pure white) suddenly *went off* and just a small dot of light remained, still heading vertically
•      The dot of light went higher and higher until you could barely see it, and then it suddenly turned horizontal and moved off at a high rate of speed to the east

Only a few things this could be:

•     An F-15 or F-22, which are capable of a vertical climb on afterburner to altitudes exceeding 30 or 40 thousand feet ( their engines produce more thrust using afterburner than the weight of the aircraft with limited armament, hence they can climb at a 90 degree angle, but can only do so briefly before exhausting their fuel supply and reducing their range significantly)
•     A missile or rocket which could be launched from Vandenberg Air Force base, or perhaps a ship at sea (The Nimitz carrier #68 and support fleet were just in San Francisco last week and could now be operating off the coast of California)
•     Starship Enterprise NCC-1701, having just performed a warp maneuver around the local star (sol) sometime in the future, is dragged back to 2006. The warp has drained their dilithium crystals, so they can only maneuver on impulse power and attempt to climb out of the atmosphere (but, of course, cannot use their shields to conceal themselves due to the drained dilithium crystal problem). Kirk is concerned and dramatic, Spock is sardonic and pragmatic. I catch their asses red handed and smile knowingly.

Comments

[Beavis Christ]

I believe the Millenium Falcon can TOO do this maneuver.