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Did anybody see this?
Friend's email | 2/12/12 | Vanity

Posted on 02/12/2012 9:16:05 AM PST by WVKayaker

Help if you can.

A retired USAF friend took this photo this earlier this morning from Gulfport, MS (at the Armed Forces Retirement Home) and has been trying to find more info.

He has called many sources, but has been unable to confirm a launch or ??? If you also saw it, please post anything you may know so I can give him an answer.



TOPICS: Military/Veterans; Science
KEYWORDS: alabamaflorida; missile; rocket
It's not a big deal to me, but my retired friend here at AFRH worked at Vandenburg and several other launch spots and was Verrrrry curious. He's an old guy with nothing better to do. I'm a young'un here and use internet FRiends when possible...
1 posted on 02/12/2012 9:16:06 AM PST by WVKayaker
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To: WVKayaker

Here we go again


2 posted on 02/12/2012 9:18:21 AM PST by kanawa
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To: WVKayaker

Looks like a contrail optical illusion. It appears to be going ‘up’ because further back, the contrail is dissipating so it is wider and you don’t get the perspective view of something getting smaller the further away it is.


3 posted on 02/12/2012 9:25:06 AM PST by mnehring
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To: WVKayaker
link
4 posted on 02/12/2012 9:25:18 AM PST by kanawa
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To: WVKayaker

I’m an airline pilot of 24 years now. It could just as easily be an airliner contrail that is dissipating. Just my humble opinion.


5 posted on 02/12/2012 9:27:59 AM PST by Wildbill22
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To: WVKayaker

http://uncinus.wordpress.com/2010/11/09/4/


6 posted on 02/12/2012 9:29:27 AM PST by mnehring
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To: mnehring
I thought the same thing, but he insisted I was wrong. I figured I would get some help figuring it out.

Hey, it's Sunday Morn and no feetball or NASCAR, so might as well chase some shadows!

Thanks for the input!

7 posted on 02/12/2012 9:30:07 AM PST by WVKayaker (The GOP needs to live the planks of its platform, not just offer lip service. -Sarah Palin 8/2008)
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To: WVKayaker

Probably a contrail...my house faces west over a jet route and I see these all the time at sunset. Optical illusion.


8 posted on 02/12/2012 9:30:43 AM PST by DouglasKC
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To: WVKayaker

Give him the link in post #6, it explains dissipation and perspective very well. It shows very similar contrails from different angles, some looking like it is going straight up but from a slightly different angle, it is obvious it is parallel to the horizon.


9 posted on 02/12/2012 9:32:04 AM PST by mnehring
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To: WVKayaker
Contrails from jets can appear to be ascending from the ground, when in fact they were made by jets traveling from the horizon toward the viewer's position.

A few years ago we had a large number of people calling in to talk shows and asking about missiles being launched because of these vapor trails going from a visual ground level and apparently straight up.

Actually they were just approaching from the horizon (not the ground) heading west. It's a visual trick caused by the perspective of the witness.

10 posted on 02/12/2012 9:33:47 AM PST by Kenton
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To: WVKayaker

it’s a contrail from the government dropping halucinogens and subservience-inducing inhalants. There must be a black neighborhood nearby. Probably on the other side of the railroad tracks.


11 posted on 02/12/2012 10:06:20 AM PST by the invisib1e hand (religion + guns = liberty)
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To: kanawa

Since the “missile sighting” off of the SoCal coast in Dec 2010, I’ve seen hundreds of these same types of contrails...from aircraft...I have few pics, too.


12 posted on 02/12/2012 10:07:52 AM PST by TankerKC (Welcome to the age of "I Meant to Do That" Diplomacy)
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To: WVKayaker

Contrail from a nyan cat. Or unicorn.


13 posted on 02/12/2012 10:11:09 AM PST by Keith in Iowa (Willard Romney, purveyor of the world's finest bullmitt. | FR Class of 1998 |)
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To: WVKayaker

If that was taken from Gulfport then the “launch site” was my backyard. Your friend needs a hobby.


14 posted on 02/12/2012 10:51:43 AM PST by Kirkwood (Zombie Hunter)
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To: WVKayaker

15 posted on 02/12/2012 3:55:59 PM PST by Brian Kopp DPM
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To: WVKayaker

Where have you been, it was a missile launched off the coast of California by a Chinese submarine........

16 posted on 02/12/2012 4:07:57 PM PST by Hot Tabasco (The only solution to this primary is a shoot out! Last person standing picks the candidate)
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To: WVKayaker
A retired USAF friend took this photo this earlier this morning from Gulfport, MS

Just this very morning, eh? And you received it in an email............LOL!

17 posted on 02/12/2012 4:10:52 PM PST by Hot Tabasco (The only solution to this primary is a shoot out! Last person standing picks the candidate)
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To: WVKayaker

I live in Mobile, Al. I see this all the time, especially in winter, coming out of the east. If you watch them long enough, they will cease to appear vertical and become obviously horizontal, just like the video from off the coast of California. They are aircraft, not missiles.


18 posted on 02/12/2012 5:40:16 PM PST by suthener
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To: Hot Tabasco

Never said as an email, idjit. He took the photo and asked me my opinion. I downloaded it from his Canon 5mp camera. I just opened it up to the folks herein, and asked for opinions. Yours is obviously flawed by lack of sufficient intelligent quotient for comprehension of the posted subject matter... have a nice life!


19 posted on 02/12/2012 8:15:35 PM PST by WVKayaker (The GOP needs to live the planks of its platform, not just offer lip service. -Sarah Palin 8/2008)
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To: WVKayaker

Contrails can linger in advance of a strong cold front to the point of being very distorted visually. We did have such a front come through.


20 posted on 02/12/2012 8:21:11 PM PST by RegulatorCountry
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