Military slams door on mystery missile questions

"Well, you should back off. "About" doesn't say exactly when he started filming at all. At any rate we already eliminated UPS902 for certain by the criterion we just discussed a few posts ago. Add to that Gil Leyvas' own testimony that he saw the contrail of an airplane well south of what he filmed and we have two good reasons to leave UPS902 out of any discussion of this."

As evidenced by my previous post, if I say something that isn't correct, I admit it. But there is no doubt that UPS902 is what made the contrail filmed by Leyvas and pictured in the Cargo Law photo. The proof has been presented to you several times, and it is a simple matter of triangulation. I'll go through it step by step.

1. We know exactly when the Cargo Law photo was taken, and where the camera is located and the direction it was pointed when it took the photo.

2. We know exactly where UPS902 at each minute based on the data from Flightaware. Flightaware UPS902

3. It is possible to plot the lat/long of UPS902 at when the Cargo Law camera took its photo.

4. Plotting the line of sight from the Cargo Law camera at the time of the Cargo Law contrail photo was taken crosses the flightpath of UPS902 at almost exactly the lat/long of the aircraft for that time as recorded on Flightaware.See this post

Therefore, it is safe and logical to conclude that the Cargo Law camera took a photo of the UPS902 contrail.

Now, lets take a look at the Leyvas video, and specifically a still from the video that shows Long Beach harbor.

We don't know the exact time the video was taken, but we do know it was sometime around 5:15. Plotting a line of site from the helicopter toward the contrail in his video provides the following (The red line of site is from the Leyvas helicopter and the yellow is from the Cargo Law camera).

Not surprisingly, the line of site from the Cargo Law camera toward UPS902, and the line of site from the Leyvas video intersect at very nearly the same point. Therefore, it is safe and logical to conclude that the contrail in the Leyvas video is the same contrail photographed by the Cargo Law camera. And since we already know the Cargo Law camera photographed UPS902, we now also know Leyvas did too.

And since we already know the Cargo Law camera photographed UPS902,...

We don't know that. It photographed something.

Where is the contrail of SWA 1642 which passed across your projected line of sight between 17:15 and 17:20 at an altitude of 36k ft. to 38k+ ft. heading northwest between the LA harbor and Santa Catalina Island?

You can track its flight here. Bob Hope Airport - Airport Monitor

Odd that it didn't leave a contrail across the screen of Leyvas' video from left to right.

UPS902 first appears on the Airport Monitor, set at its widest range of 80 miles, at 17:29:18 at an altitude of 37,600 ft. almost due west of Catalina Island coming from the southwest not well north of Catalina and the Channel Islands as your diagram shows.

Also, you show a line of sight from the Sky2 chopper that crosses Catalina Island yet in the second to last pic you posted you can see Catalina well to the south of the line of sight.

There just isn't enough information to make those projections in any way accurate. You need exact positions for the helicopter and an exact time for the videotaping. When you start adding small errors up you end up with one big one.

Seriously?! We know exactly when the photo was taken. We know exactly where UPS902 was when the photo was taken. And we know that a line connecting the camera and the lat/long of UPS902 when the photo was taken tracks exactly across the ground track depicted in the photo of the contrail. And you want someone to believe you can't draw a logical conclusion from that. But you can conclude that a few seconds of poor quality and badly edited video depict a missile launch despite no other evidence that such a launch ever occured and despite that fact that no known missile on the planet behaves anything like the object filmed by Leyvas.

You are not very familiar with contrails. They do not happen at all altitudes even at the exact same second of the day. UPS902 was at 39K ft at 17:15. SWA1642 was climbing through 26K ft at 17:15 and didn't reach 39K ft until it was well north of LAX and no longer in the field of view of the camera. Leyvas was filming an aircraft 150 miles off the coast of California. SWA1642 was flying almost directly over his helicopter. Flightaware Track Log of SWA1642 on Nov 8

Now...I don't think you are unintelligent. It took me 10 minutes to look up the actual data to answer your questions. Why didn't YOU spend the time to answer them yourself?

"UPS902 first appears on the Airport Monitor, set at its widest range of 80 miles, at 17:29:18 at an altitude of 37,600 ft. almost due west of Catalina Island coming from the southwest not well north of Catalina and the Channel Islands as your diagram shows."

You're confused. The line of sight (red line) depicted in my diagram is not the flight path of UPS902. It is a straight line connecting the Cargo Law camera and UPS902 at 17:15:44. Where UPS902 is located at 17:29:18 is irrelevent to the photo taken at 17:15:44.

"Also, you show a line of sight from the Sky2 chopper that crosses Catalina Island yet in the second to last pic you posted you can see Catalina well to the south of the line of sight."

No I don't. Neither the line I drew, nor the image taken from Sky2 depict a line of sight crossing Catalina Island. It is south (to the left) of the line of sight in all cases.

"There just isn't enough information to make those projections in any way accurate. You need exact positions for the helicopter and an exact time for the videotaping. When you start adding small errors up you end up with one big one. "

You do not need the exact location of the helicopter to determine its line of sight to the contrail. You need two distinct points to draw a line. Period. We have those. Nor do you need the exact time of the videotaping. The time is irrelevent to determining the line of sight to what Leyvas filmed. But since we know his line of sight to the contrail intersects the flight path of UPS902 at almost exactly the same point as the line of sight from the Cargo Law camera, I think we've backed up Leyvas' assessment that he was filming within a few minutes of 17:15.

You are not very familiar with contrails.

I am very familiar with contrails. Almost everyone is.

SWA1642 was climbing through 26K ft at 17:15 and didn't reach 39K ft until it was well north of LAX and no longer in the field of view of the camera.

That's not true. It was over 36k ft. well south of the sight line you give and at 38k+ not far north of it. It should have been well within the view of Leyvas' camera.

SWA1642 was flying almost directly over his helicopter.

That is completely absurd. Sky2 chopper was over land east of LA harbor. SWA1642 was at least 15 miles to the west over the water.

You're confused. The line of sight (red line) depicted in my diagram is not the flight path of UPS902.

No, you're confused. I was speaking of the line you drew in the pic at #3. Perhaps that wasn't supposed to be its flight path. In that case I don't know what that line represents.

You do not need the exact location of the helicopter to determine its line of sight to the contrail.

If you don't have the right position for the helicopter then you have no idea what direction the camera was pointed.

The time is irrelevent to determining the line of sight to what Leyvas filmed.

But it is relevant to what was out there at the time he taped.

"I am very familiar with contrails. Almost everyone is."

Have you ever created one? Are you aware that the altitude bands at which contrails form can be as narrow as 1000ft?

"That's not true. It was over 36k ft. well south of the sight line you give and at 38k+ not far north of it. It should have been well within the view of Leyvas' camera."

Ok, I plotted out the points. You are correct with respect to where the aircraft was when it reached 36K and 38K ft. But did you note the times when it reached those altitudes? It reached 39.2Kft at 17:23. Even if Leyvas was 8 minutes off on when he said he started filming, the lat/long of the SWA aircraft places it outside of his camera field of view when you plot it on Google earth. Don't believe me? Plot it out yourself. It is to the right of the camera field of view.

"That is completely absurd. Sky2 chopper was over land east of LA harbor. SWA1642 was at least 15 miles to the west over the water."

Now you believe you know where the helicopter was at 17:23? Where was it?

"No, you're confused. I was speaking of the line you drew in the pic at #3. Perhaps that wasn't supposed to be its flight path. In that case I don't know what that line represents."

If you mean the yellow line with the helicopter symbol at one end, that is the line of sight from the position Leyvas was filming to the contrail.

"If you don't have the right position for the helicopter then you have no idea what direction the camera was pointed."

Again, to determine a line of sight, all you need are two points upon which to base a line. That is why the portion of the video filmed over Long Beach is so helpful. There are several easily identifiable points upon which someone can "connect the dots" toward the contrail. Line them all up, and you know the line of site from Sky2 to the contrail. You can't tell how long that line is (from the helicopter to the contrail), but you know its track across the earth, which is all you need to determine what direction the camera is looking.

"But it is relevant to what was out there at the time he taped."

That's true. But Leyvas is the only person who can provide that time estimate and the LA Times said he told them he started filming at 17:15. Based on the fact that the sun has set, but it is still relatively light out, that is probably a decent estimate.

If you mean the yellow line with the helicopter symbol at one end, that is the line of sight from the position Leyvas was filming to the contrail.

No. This one...

All of that is way north of Catalina and Long Beach and the flight path of UPS902's furthest point north was the middle of Catalina. Now I am confused as I don't know what you're depicting there.

Again, to determine a line of sight, all you need are two points upon which to base a line.

What two points are you using? First, foreshortening in the camera's lens makes it nearly impossible to determine an accurate line projected onto the image the camera takes. If it's not from the exact center of the lens out to the center line of the photo it won't be accurate. Everything from dead center in the photo, which we can't determine either, will be distorted to some extent. How much depends on the lens itself.

Now to lay that on a two-dimensional map from an imaginary vantage point above the line of sight in the photo straight down onto the surface of the earth means introducing more margins for error.

I think I would be generous to say you could be within 10 degrees either way with your line of sight. That may still satisfy you. Given how far off of that UPS902 could have been, and not been in the camera view, it's too much for me. Add uncertainty about the time in regards to an airplane traveling over 8 miles per minute and a couple of small errors would have that flight 200 miles further out or further in.

But Leyvas is the only person who can provide that time estimate and the LA Times said he told them he started filming at 17:15.

I have yet to see any source for that except the fill-in statement made by a CBS reporter who wrote a small piece on this. He didn't say Leyvas "started taping" at 17:15 either. We don't know, yet, if that's when he started taping it, finished taping it or if that's just when he called in to get the OK to tape it and started a little later. That is just not nailed down at all.

Now you believe you know where the helicopter was at 17:23? Where was it?

I don't know where it was at any specific time but I know where it was when it was taping the contrail.

"He reviewed the video footage repeatedly and that leads him to believe he was fairly exact in marking the location of the contrail. He said the LA harbor jetty is clearly in view in part of the video (that was not shown on TV or online), and he lined up the contrail in question with the curvature of that jetty from their position and 1200 foot elevation."

The graphic you posted in 170 depicts a straight red line between the Cargo Law camera and the lat/long of UPS902 at 17:16, (which is 16 seconds after the photo of its contrail was taken by the Cargo Law camera). The red line depicts the line of sight between the camera and the aircraft at 17:16. When you zoom in on that line, you can see that it tracks almost exactly across the terrain and man made features visible in the photo (See this post...).

"What two points are you using?"

I actually used three points. Look at the picture below. I used the ne corner of Freeman Island, the sw corner of the first jetty, and the gap between the northernmost jetty and the breakwater. All are visible on Google earth. Connect those three dots, and you have a line of sight between the helicopter and the contrail. "Lens distortion" etc has nothing to do with it. And if you want to argue that the lens is distorting what you see in that image, then the whole argument about contrail direction etc is moot. Also moot is your discussion about questions regarding the location of UPS902. We know exactly where it was at minute by minute intervals. The fact that the triangulation between the Cargo Law camera and the Leyvas video still below is almost perfect with respect to the Flightaware data is pretty damning to your arguments. Unless you believe all three entities are in cahoots to hide "the truth".

"I have yet to see any source for that except the fill-in statement made by a CBS reporter who wrote a small piece on this. He didn't say Leyvas "started taping" at 17:15 either."

I linked you to a source for that last night.... Cameraman who filmed “mystery missile” describes spectacular sight Here is a quote from that link "He said he was aboard the television station's helicopter shooting footage of the sunset over the ocean about 5:15 p.m when he noticed the spiral-shaped vapor trail and zoomed in to get a better look." You are grasping at straws now, with even less evidence then before to back them up. Dr. Brian Kopp is in contact with Leyvas. Perhaps he can ask him what time he started filming. And if he says "around 17:15" what straw will you reach for next?

I don't know where it was at any specific time but I know where it was when it was taping the contrail. "He reviewed the video footage repeatedly and that leads him to believe he was fairly exact in marking the location of the contrail. He said the LA harbor jetty is clearly in view in part of the video (that was not shown on TV or online), and he lined up the contrail in question with the curvature of that jetty from their position and 1200 foot elevation."

LOL. Well what do you know. Leyvas did exactly what TXnMA and I have done. And got the same result. Thanks for the confirmation.

Leyvas did exactly what TXnMA and I have done. And got the same result.

This was his result.

He thinks it was far out to sea, behind/northwest of UPS902. He does believe he saw UPS902 far to the south of the object he was viewing, because he specifically compared that contrail, which was obviously a jet liner, to this object, which was NOT obviously a jet liner.

He said that typical jet airliner contrail, in comparison to the one he videotaped, was like "comparing a tree to an ant." The contrail he was filming was nothing like the other jet airliner contrail he had in view at the time to the south.

Thanks for the confirmation.

UPS902 was 175 miles away from Long Beach at 17:15. If what he was filming was beyond that (and heading westbound), it DEFINITELY wasn't a missile. Maybe a volcanic eruption. But something even farther out than UPS902 would have to be HUGE to make the UPS902 contrail look like an ant compared to a tree. And if the object he was filming was north of UPS902, where is it in the pictures below? Keep in mind, he says it was much bigger than the UPS902 contrail. I'm not seeing it...

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