[agere_contra]

San Nicolas island is part of NAS Point Mugu. That’s 100km off the coast and is a plausible location for the base of the ‘rocket plume’. NAS Point Mugu adds up to a big testing ground. You must have impressive hearing if rocket launches that far off make you turn your head, LOL.

The video shows an evolving plume and a flame. It shows a boosted payload of some sort. You don’t see it, I do. Other FReepers can make up their own minds - from the video, not from stills of contrails.

No need to argue the toss here. When someone shoots a video of an airliner that looks the same as the ‘launch video’, then this all goes away. If they can’t shoot such a video - perhaps because planes don’t look like rockets - then the boosted payload theory is the one to go with.

[IYAS9YAS]

Also, flight time to that altitude would be relatively short for any military missile/rocket. What I don't see is the significant spread of plume near the ground that's produced when the exhaust has nowhere to go but out (even in launches from the water, the plume spreads out faster closer to the water). This relative thickness differential is not noted in this plume. It is relatively linear in thickness for the whole trail.

Even at 35 to 50 miles out, the altitude of the helicopter filming this would certainly have been able to see the ground/ocean at the launch point and the plume should have been considerably wider up to the point the earth/water is not deflecting it.

Yes it's thicker at the "bottom." However, it is still rather linear, with no real change in profile.

[CharlesWayneCT]

Quantico was exploding some ordinance last week, and freepers here were asking if there was an earthquake, as they heard and felt the blasts miles away.

A rocket launch would easily be heard 100 miles away, much less 100km.

I am familier with San Nicolas Island.

Of course, the story was that we didn’t know anything about the launch — it is hard to believe we wouldn’t know that we launched a missile from our own base.