We saw a solid yellowish light with a vapor trail silently pass fade then re-appear.

Sighting Date and approximate time     
9/25/2010 at around 9pm  
My family and I were leaving a beach party near the Oceanside pier when my son said “check out that jet”  I looked in the direction and saw what I believed to be a jet with a long bright vapor trail.  It was traveling in a fairly straight line horizontally to the ocean at about 30 degrees flying north to south. The light on the aircraft was a bright yellow and the vapor trail was the same color.  I lowered my widow to be sure that what I was seeing wasn’t a reflection on the window.  Certain it was a jet I turned the car off and expected to here the sound of a thundering engine but it was completely quiet.  As it passed midpoint the light began to fade very similarly to how I’ve seen  satellite fades in the passed so I re assessed it as possibly a satellite reflecting the sun but about two seconds after it faded the light flared up again with what appeared to be a puff of smoke and  slowed down considerably.  The sky was relatively clear however the puff of smoke could have been ! a small cloud that simply wasn’t visible prior to the flare up. As the craft passed silently in front of us it slowly faded once again.