No, no... take the tin-foil off. This reminds me of when we had the earthquake in the middle of night (yes, in Illinois) and I went to FR and sure enough, someone had posted the question, was there just an earthquake in Illinois".
I've seen nighttime rockets before, most recently while in Sanibel Island during the last week in April. This was very similar.
Go ahead and put your tin-foil back on, if you must... But, I know it was some kind of rocket.
Or, maybe a fighter climbing with afterburners ignited?
re. Prince Charles' question, you have any fighter bases around there, Navy, Marine Corps or Air Force that could have scrambled at 2:30AM? Probably somewhere to the southwest of you given your reported flight trajectory.
And how often is it that you see these rockets?
Here is my post when we had the earthquake last year - I was relieved that I wasn't nuts and that someone else felt it! http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1161472/posts?page=20#20
Someone else had to have seen or heard this (thanks GrayBeard for confiming the noise)...
Around 40 posts in 25 minutes when it's the middle of the night on a week night in time zones across the continental US. Good job!
I've seen 'em during the day, too.
I haven't been able to get my hands on their launch schedule around here for some reason. It seems rather erratic.
I saw one go over Peoria about two years ago around 2:00 AM going from north to south. I wrote the local radio station the next day to ask if anyone else saw it and couple responded that they saw it too. I can't rule out that it was a metoer but I watched missles launch all the time in the Navy and what I saw was a missle.