If that was a reference to me, I am a foot surgeon ("DPM" - Doctor of Podiatric Medicine, i.e., a Podiatrist.) I have never claimed to be an expert on anything related to this debate. I just talked to the first hand witnesses, and related their opinions.
One of them thinks it might have been a missile, but he's not sure. One of them said it definitely was not a missile, based on the fact it was in view for almost five minutes in his photos. My contention all along has been that SLBMs do not create an exhaust plume for 5 to 10 minutes.
No one has proven Leyvas' main point, that the object disappeared from view after 2 to 3 minutes.
On the contrary, the opposite view has been established: the object creating the contrail continued creating a contrail throughout Leyvas' video as well as throughout Warren's photos, which represents a time frame of over ten minutes.
Missiles do not create exhaust plumes for over ten minutes.
Airliners do create contrails, given the right atmospheric conditions, as long as they are flying in those atmospheric conditions.
Every possible scenario that could "prove" this was a missile has been dismissed. There's nothing left to debate.
... by armchair theorists with enormous egos who refuse to accept the proof of the video itself and the lighting direction of the setting sun that proves a vertical plume created by an object headed north-west. They deny this in part by way of a pretend "optical illusion."
Kopp, you had me fooled for a little while that you were approaching this in real seek-the-truth, objective curiosity via investigative reporting. The reality: You went into your interviews with Gil Leyvas WITH YOUR MIND ALREADY MADE UP that no matter what he told you, you were going to "discover" that he was mistaken, that he was fooled, that he was too dim to understand that he was shooting footage of a common airliner condensation trail instead of a missile.
From YOUR article, words Leyvas said TO YOU: I did zoom into that portion to see if I could see a craft of some kind (at the time I thought that there was a chance the object was still making condensation/exhaust) but there was nothing there creating that segment. Had there been, I know I would have been able to see it with the high-powered lens I was using. Add to that - if it was traveling toward us, the closer it would come the easier it would be to see it, but there was nothing there.
You're a phony-baloney as non-agenda reporter, Kopp, and your contempt for Leyvas' intelligence and competence is disgusting.
Except for the point where it stopped making a contrail and he continued to tape its ascent.
Leyvas' video here showing the change from a continuous plume to a short, quickly dissipating contrail.
Plenty of flakes in the medical profession too, I'm afraid. Zawahri is a pediatrician. No, that is merely a little back reference to what people often push the most irrational stuff.
No one has proven Leyvas' main point, that the object disappeared from view after 2 to 3 minutes.
So, apart from writing for the hated WND (and bragging of it on your profile), you are also hanging the actual producer of the footage out as a liar while, of course, thanking him profusely for helping you.
As I've said before: something about this case (and I think it is the rather bad conclusions you have to draw) is scaring some people quite literally out of their tiny minds. At which point they *must* rationalize it into something harmless.