Originally posted by Havalon
I have found 3 possible places (airports) in the vicinity of Needles, including what looks like a dissused runway south west of Needles on the Indian reservation road. Not sure how up-to-date the google images are tho'.
Keeping on seeking!
H

"It's also the possibility it lost control and flew off the range. It's not that far from Edwards or the test ranges," he said. Last month, a classified object was launched into space by the Air Force. The Pentagon has confirmed it's the X-37B space plane, an unmanned spy plane, sort of the military's version of the space shuttle. A few images of the X-37 have been made public, along with video of a sister vehicle the X-40.

The military acknowledges these crafts have been test flown at Edwards and Vandenberg, not too far from Needles. The shape and the size are a near perfect match for what the witnesses saw. Bob confirms it looks like the object he saw. "Without the horizontal surfaces, yes. Without the wings," he said.

Houseboat Bob said even though the glow from the object was blue green, the object appeared to be black and shiny as it was being airlifted away. Photos of the X-37 show black, shiny tiles on the exterior. The I-Team sent records requests to numerous agencies and none were able to shed light on what the Needles object might have been. The Air Force won't say much about the mission of the X-37, but military analysts have some guesses.

"What they say they will use it for testing space technologies, and certainly having a re-usable vehicle would be a way of sending up prototypes, batteries, cooling systems, electronics, testing them then bringing them back down so you can modify them. Possibly, it's a space maneuver vehicle so it can duck back in the atmosphere and change its orbit so next time it flew over China, the Chinese wouldn't expect it coming," said military watchdog John Pike.

Another military analyst who spoke on the condition of anonymity says he thinks it could be part of a weapons program known as the Rods from the Gods, which we know has been tested out at Area 51. These are spaced-based kinetic weapons that literally fall out of the sky and cause problems for the bad guys.

But for now, the best guess of the witnesses is the X-37.