Posted on 11/10/2010 9:00:55 AM PST by roses of sharon
(CBS) More than a day after a CBS camera caught video of an unidentified projectile leaving a condensation trail off the California coast, the situation remains a mystery, with the Defense Department insisting that it was not a missile.
The Pentagon is still not sure what that was in the sky off the coast of California -- except that it was not a missile fired by the U.S. or some other country, reports CBS News Pentagon correspondent David Martin.
The video of what looks for all the world like the contrail of a missile was shot Monday evening by KCBS cameraman Gil Leyvas from a news helicopter over Los Angeles.
"I saw a big plume coming up, rising from looked like beyond the horizon and it continued to grow," Leyvas said.
He zoomed his camera in and stayed on it for about 10 minutes. To him it looked like an incoming missile.
"It was unique. It was moving," he said. "It was growing in the sky."
The Pentagon spends billions of dollars a year making sure it is never surprised by a missile launch - so finding out what the camera saw became a top priority. Both the Navy and the Air Force insisted they had not launched any missiles and the North American Air Defense Command - which is supposed to track incoming missiles - declared it had not been fired by any other military. But nobody could say what it was.
But Doug Richardson, the editor of Jane’s Missiles and Rockets, examined the video for the Times of London and said he was left with little doubt.
"It’s a solid propellant missile," he told the Times. "You can tell from the efflux [smoke]."
Richardson said it could have been a ballistic missile launched from a submarine or an interceptor, the defensive anti-missile weapon used by Navy surface ships.
The Twitterati had a field day Tuesday, tweeting comments like "Can someone please tell me how our Department of Defense has no idea who launched a missile from California's coast?"; "So nobody in our government or military knows? Scary."; and "If you misplaced a missile off the coast of California, the U.S. government would like to have a few words with you."
The Federal Aviation Administration did not receive any reports of a missile from other pilots in the area or track any unusually fast objects. The Air Defense Command determined the object was not traveling fast enough or have a big enough exhaust plume to be a military missile.
The best guess right now is that it was either an airliner or an amateur rocket, but we may never know for certain.
I certainly expected a more mature response from the readers of this forum.
It reads exactly as one would expect to see on DU, were the president a Republican.
Very disturbing performance, FReeperLand.
Actually what it says is “radar replay of a large area west of Los Angeles did not reveal any fast moving unidentified targets in that area.”
There must be another source for the report that no air traffic flying in from the west at that time.
On the CBS link for this story they show the video to Robert Ellesworth former deputy secretary of defense.....It’s apparent he’s trying to figure out what type of missle it is. He says the Navy should chime in and tell us for sure.
Having seen the video, anyone who thinks this was an aircraft ‘contrail’ is drinking anti-freeze and smoking banana peels. Probably voted for Commander Zero too.
Question about the video. Does it ever show an object rising with the plume being left behind it? Or is it always a long existing plume with the bright object located at the top?
I had thought we had a video of the missile rising from fairly soon after launch. If the 10 minute video shows a plume sitting there then it’s less persuasive.
Nothing I've seen shows any launch or any real climb to speak of. Not only that, but as a poster mentioned earlier, ten minutes of video and that missile would be long gone and out of range.
The video I saw, was much shorter than 10 minutes. It did look like a missile, but illusions are likely in these situations. I did notice that the object seemed to be moving very slowly (for a missile).
FAA says other planes were in the area according to this AFP report from an Australian site:
"The FAA, when they looked at the radar replay for that time period, they went out some distance from the coast, and identified that they had no fast moving unidentified objects in that area at that time.
"They did have commercial airliners in that area. None of those commercial airliners reported anything unusual," he said. "So all of those things point again to the fact that we believe this is an aircraft condensation trail."
11-11...Vetrans Day...Obama out of the country...
Just a bad feeling.
I live south of LAX and west of Long Beach airport, can't see the water but can see the sky above it. Also can see AC in and out of both airports ('though not all AC from LAX).
My observations were/are:
I didn't hang around to catch the sunset because there was nothing to see, no contrails and only a few wispy clouds.
There are always planes visible around here because of the two airports - see above regarding no contrails.
I have never seen an AC contrail similar to the tape in this area but I have seen video of several missile launches that sure did mimic this one.
The taped trail appeared to include slight course or angle of attack changes, not like an approach to LA.
I do note that the cameraman says that he origin 'appeared' to be over the horizon - which does not agree with the distance off shore that is being cited. (You can see Catalina from the local Home Depot)
Boeing operates a sea based launch system out of Long Beach harbor but they don't launch near our coast and certainly don't putt around the Pacific with loaded missiles just waiting to be fired off by accident.
All that said - I don't have a clue what it was but the sky conditions that day make me real skeptical.
It was a missile, I tell ya! It was fired at Flight 800 inbound to Phoenix but it missed! Get the link? TWA 800 >> USAir 808! See the connection! And don't miss the time. Both were in the evening. And the dates. 7/17/1996 >> 11/9/2010! Add the numbers plus the flight numbers, subtract 18 (18=9/2)from the TWA total and you get 2820 for both events! Divide 2820 and you get 313. Day 313 is NOVEMBER 9th!
Hmm. All these experts miss the fact that the bright side of the plume would be away from the viewer if it were a missile launch. The bright side is toward the viewer as it would be when the low sun is reflecting from the bottom of the contrail.
Please ask your expert how the sun from the west makes the EAST side of the plume bright!
The only way for a submarine to track a missile or any other target is to stick something up out of the water and look for it. And once they do that then they can be found by surface or air units and their stealth is lost. Using a sub as an anti-missile platform just makes no sense.
A few years back my husband and I noticed something like this. We expected to hear something about a missile or some other explaination, but apparently the sky having that look wasn’t news that day.
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