UPDATE: Contrail Science writes:
Note to the media – since this was almost certainly Flight AWE808 (US Airways) from Hawaii to Phoenix, why not have a camera crew somewhere in the vicinity (does not need to be exact, or a chopper), at around 5-5:30 today, and if the weather is right you’ll see the same trail again.
Here’s the flight path below for 11/8/10. If anybody gets any new photos today, leave a comment and I’ll get them posted here.
Original post starts below:
There’s quite a buzz in the blogosphere about this video shot by a KCBS News helicopter. Explanations range from “Moonbeam Gov. Jerry Brown is headed home to visit relatives” to “missile launch kept secret by the Pentagon”.
Whatever it is, I’ve seen nothing like it. The speed doesn’t match a missile, but the trajectory and cloud pattern certainly seems to. Perhaps our readers can help figure this out. One alert reader “slp” posted in comments a link to a likely Occams Razor style explanation.
watch the video:
For people outside the USA that may not be able to see the first video, try this one:
For reference, here’s a certified missile shot from the Air Force Space Command:
I’m wondering if this isn’t some stunt plane practicing over the ocean (where the pilot doesn’t have to worry about buildings, power lines, towers, guy wires, FAA airspace permissions, etc.) with a smoke generator turned on? Watch this video from about 15-20 seconds in. That looks like what the “missile” video is. Add some red sunset lighting and you’ve got instant “slow moving missile”.
UPDATE: Thanks to alert reader “slp” who wrote: “Likely a contrail:”
Indeed it looks very much like this jet contrail seen off San Clemente, from Contrail Science Overflow, excerpted below:
Jet contrails from some angles look like missile trails
An interesting contrail cropped up off the coast of San Clemente, Orange County, California on December 31st 2009. The curious shape led some people to think it’s a missile launch, which it does kind of look like (all taken from San Clemente)
“Missile-like” contrail. Note this is the Dec 31st contrail, not the Nov 8th CBS one. That’s at the bottom of the post.
…
This view is from Corona del Mar, about 20 miles Northeast of San Clemente:
Here’s a similar photo (of a different contrail, obviously) on the same day at the other side of the country:
Not a missile launch.
…
Here’s the idea with math:
The idea that it’s a missile launch comes from three misconceptions. Firstly that the trail is vertical – it’s not, it’s a horizontal trail, at around 32,000 feet (about six miles). It’s the same as this:
This contrail is no more vertical than the road is, and nor are the power lines at 45 degrees. Everything is horizontal – it’s the just the angle you are viewing it from. All of these show horizontal contrails.
Secondly there’s the misconception of direction, that it’s flying away from the viewer, when it’s actually flying towards the viewer. This is because the “base” of the contrail seems wider than the tip. Perspective tells the brain that this mean the base is closer. But actually you can see the base has been greatly spread by the wind. Since it’s still so far away the effects of perspective are greatly diminished, meaning the actual width of the contrail is what is creating the illusion. Imagine is a plane with a 100 mile long spreading contrail were coming towards you; what would it look like? It would look exactly like this.
Thirdly there’s the idea that it goes all the way down to the ground. Now that might be true if the Earth was flat, but the Earth is round, and things go beneath the horizon eventually, no matter how high they are. A plane 200 miles away but five miles up is always below the horizon. If the horizon is raised (as it is here, with Catalina Island), then the distance is less. Here’s some math:
This diagram is not to scale, but the math is the same regardless. The solid curved line is the surface of the earth. The dot at the top is San Clemente. The little triangle is Catalina. “d” is the distance to Catalina (d=35 miles). “c” the amount of Catalina that is visible above the horizon (c=0.05 miles, really a bit more, but let’s be conservative). “a” is the altitude of the plane, (a = 6 miles). “r” is the radius of the earth (r=3963 miles).
The green wavy line is the contrail. Notice it’s at a fixed height above the surface of the earth, and is going directly towards the OC.
The point labeled (0,0) is the center of the earth. (0,0) means X=0, Y=0, where X is horizontal and Y is vertical. What we want to know is how far away the plane is, the value x. We do this with cartesian geometry, noting that the lowest visible point of the trail is at the intersection of the dotted line, which is a circle of radius (r+a), hence the equation x^2 + y^2 = (r+a)^2 and the line labeled “sight line”, which is has the equation y=x*c/d. Combining these equations to solve for x yields a quadratic equation, which we can solve with Wolfram Alpha:
intersection of (y=r+x*c/d) and (x^2+y^2 = (r+a)^2)
and with the real numbers:
intersection of (y=r+x*c/d) and (x^2+y^2 = (r+a)^2) where a=6 and d=35 and c=0.05 and r=3963
Which gives x = 212, meaning that the bottom of the contrail is around 200 miles away. So if the front of the contrail (the actual aircraft) is somewhere above and behind catalina, then that means the contrail is over 100 miles long. At 500 mph, that means it could have formed in 12-15 minutes, which seems consistent with the descriptions in the discussion above. (feel free to play around with the numbers there to see the affect of various assumptions)
Full post here: Jet contrails from some angles look like missile trails
After so much comment, the bottom line is:
If this aerial vehicle is coming towards the camera, it is a contrail. A common illusion in an evening sky that I have seen many times.
If it is going away from the camera, it CANNOT be a contrail. That particular illusion, highlighted at the beginning of the thread, cannot work with a receding aircraft.
So is it coming towards the viewer, or away?
I vote that it is going away.
.
re post by: ShaneCMuir says: November 11, 2010 at 12:49 am
/offbase rant
Shane, it might behoove you to check your own preconceived notions of just what is or isn’t science before becoming so condescending and dismissive. A hint might be to check your own definitions when a lot of people use a term in a fashion that seems odd to you. The simple fact is that contrails quite commonly do ‘hang around’ after the airplane is gone, often for literally hours. They can even grow and affect the cloudiness of the entire sky. First, here’s a handy contrail guide for you – note the entries for “persistent contrails.” Especially note the photos. Frankly its hard for me to credit that anyone wasn’t aware of long duration contrails, considering how common they are. Anyhow, I’m sure you can google up plenty of information yourself, but to get you started in addition to the guide, see the info below.
My apologies to all for the formatting below, but copied this from a google preview of a pdf: http://www.af.mil/shared/media/document/AFD-051013-001.pdf
…..Depending
on the temperature and the amount
of moisture in the air at the aircraft
altitude, contrails can either
evaporate quickly or they can persist and grow. Engine exhaust produces only a small portion of
the water that forms ice in persistent contrails. Persistent contrails are mainly composed of
water naturally present along the aircraft flight path….
After the initial formation of ice, a
contrail evolves in one of two ways.
If the humidity is low, the contrail will
be short-lived. Newly formed ice
particles will quickly evaporate. The
resulting contrail will extend only a
short distance behind the aircraft. If
the humidity is high, the contrail will
be persistent. Newly formed ice
particles will continue to grow in size
by taking water from the surrounding
atmosphere. The resulting line-
shaped contrail extends for large
distances behind an aircraft.
Persistent contrails can last for
hours while growing to several
kilometers in width and 200 to 400
meters in height. Contrails spread
because of air turbulence created by
the passage of aircraft, differences
in wind speed along the flight track,
and possibly through effects of solar
heating.
Thus, the surrounding atmosphere’s
conditions determine to a large
extent whether or not a contrail will
form after an aircraft’s passage, and
how it evolves. Other factors that
influence contrail formation include
engine fuel efficiency, which affects
the amount of heat and water
emitted in the exhaust plume.
Contrails become visible roughly about a wingspan distance behind the aircraft. Contrails can
be formed by propeller or jet turbine powered aircraft. During WWII, large formations of bombers
left strikingly remarkable contrail formations. Typical contrails are shown below.
The contrails formed by the exhaust at high altitude are typically white and very similar to cirrus
clouds. As the exhaust gases expand and mix with the atmosphere, the contrail diffuses and
spreads. It is very difficult to distinguish aged contrails from cirrus clouds. At sunsets, these contrails can be visibly eye-
catching and striking as they reflect the blue, yellow, and red spectrum of the reflected sunlight….
Persistent contrails are of interest to scientists because they affect the cloudiness of the atmosphere…. (full article online)
My bad, I thought I’d pasted the contrail guide link into my previous post before submitting, but apparently not. It’s at: http://asd-www.larc.nasa.gov/GLOBE/resources/Contrail_Formation_English.jpg
“ShaneCMuir says:
November 11, 2010 at 12:49 am
I don’t know what this thing was.. and quite frankly.. I don’t really care. In the larger scheme of things.. it is of little or no importance.
But to call it a “contrail”.. on a science site.. is THE MOST LUDICROUS thing I have read on WUWT.
Contrails are made from water vapour which dissipates within a few seconds of leaving the aircraft.. much like your breath does on a cold night.
Contrails do not hang around in the air after the plane has gone.
C’mon Anthony.. its science man.. science…….”
You are in error and should check your facts before discrediting Anthony’s site. Rocket motor smoke does dissipate rather quickly. Condensation trails on the other hand can linger for a long time because they turn into ice crystals. Longevity depends on the prevailing atmospheric conditions at the specific altitude.
Here is an extreme example. There was a shuttle launch back in July of 2009 (STS-127). It happened July 15 at 6:03pm EST. Two and a half hours later and approximately 250km WSW of the Kennedy Space Center I made this 6-minute exposure on large format film about 20-minutes after sunset, looking West over the Gulf of Mexico:
http://www.josesuroeditorial.com/Other/Tests/1138678_nKNKC/11/1086571658_RDLKa/Original
In his return email to me, NASA’s Jerry Bonnell wrote this: “……does look very much like the remnants of the shuttle’s contrail cloud, and i do think that is what it is…..”
The contrail not only survived for over 2-hours, but it traveled West approximately 250km. There are quite a number of studies available on the subject of contrail longevity.
Gerald Machnee says:
November 10, 2010 at 8:57 pm
1. I have no doubt there were a lot of flights. Flights to/from LAX would be well below cruising altitude. Most flights would be from the “lower 48” and even if you included Alsaska, none would be toward the setting Sun – except for Hawaii and international flights involving Asia.
How many flights from Asia don’t land in California and press on to Phoenix or Texas? I have no idea. Should not be “a lot of flights.”
2a) The plane was far away.
2b) As noted in Patrick Minnis November 10, 2010 at 8:50 pm, “conditions were
right for persistent contrails.” This suggests the individual plumes spread and mixed quickly.
3) Perhaps the western stretch was breaking up or was in less persistent conditions and never became as substantial as the optimal area.
4) Several people have – from recorded flight data, from GOES satellite images, the same flight seen the next day.
Airplane – lots and lots of evidence for AWE808.
Ralph says:
November 11, 2010 at 12:53 am
Just because California has a big population it doesn’t follow it is a densely populated state or that the coastal sky is full of airplanes at cruising altitude.
CA: 37 million people squeezed into 420,000 km^2, or 90/km^2
Germany: 82 million people squeezed into 357,000 km^2, or 229/km^2
Germany is surrounded by populous countries, Califoria is not (Nevada has 2.6 million) and has the Pacific Ocean for thousands of kms to the west.
If you’re looking for obliterated sky in the US, look in more populated Eastern half and look well away from the coast. I think St. Louis was one of the areas studied for evidence of cooling by contrails in the mid 1970s.
Jose Suro,
Thanks for that link. You have some wonderful photos there.
irRational Debate says:
November 11, 2010 at 2:55 am
“The simple fact is that contrails quite commonly do ‘hang around’ after the airplane is gone, often for literally hours. They can even grow and affect the cloudiness of the entire sky.”
– and so it begins..
That my friend is total and absolute hogwash!
What you are talking about there is what is commonly known as chemtrails.
There is a very big difference between contrails and chemtrails.
Perhaps you should google chemtrails and learn a little a bit about what is currently going on all over this planet..
I did not really want to get into this debate.. which I have had many many times in the last half a dozen years or so.. but I guess Anthony brought it up.. so..
I have many links and references.. and we could talk about Barium and Aluminium until the cows come home..
But rather than getting bogged down on the technicalities of how water vapour manages to spread out across the sky and become clouds.. mainly because there is now A LOT of dis-information out there now.. consider this..
Think about all the ‘period’ films that have been made over the last, say, 50 years.
If they were making a film.. set in a time before the 20th century.. and a plane came into shot.. they would have to shoot it again.. right?
Now in all those hundreds, perhaps thousands, of period films that have been made in the last 50 years.. do you think they stopped filming for THE ENTIRE DAY when a jet plane flew across because of the contrail??
Think of a Cowboy film (with big wide shots of the sky) being made in the 70’s or 80’s.. did they EVER stop filming for the entire day because of ‘persistant’ contrails?? … NO!!
Surely you agree that a ‘persistant’ contrail would ruin the illusion of being back in time for these directors and cinematographers.
There has to be a hell of a lot of people that have been on the set of a period film to ask about this too.
The fact is that ‘persistant’ contrails.. (aka chemtrails).. are a relatively new phenomena. (about 7 years in Australia.. and from what I hear.. maybe as much as 15 or so years in some places in the U.S.)
If you are under 25 years old and live in the U.S. then maybe I could understand that the difference between contrails and chemtrails could be confusing.
The U.S. must have A LOT of jet plane traffic in the sky.. coming and going from all directions.
But I live in country Victoria in Australia.
When you see 20 ‘persistant’ contrails in the sky between 7am and 9am and they are all going roughly east-west.. it is bloody obvious something is going on.
North-south traffic would even be ridiculous.. there would not be that many flights even between Melbourne and Sydney.. but EAST-WEST???
There is no-where to fly to.. or from!!
Persistant contrails IS A LIE!!
Call them by their accepted name.. they are called CHEMTRAILS!
All these silly theories about something quite ordinary: It obviously was a Chupacabran pilot having fun in his weather balloon full of swamp gas refracting light from Venus such that it ignited atmospheric phenomena, mass hysteria and some widely scattered light in the late afternoon hours.
Long ago I was EOD stationed at White Sands Missile Range. I have seen hundreds of missile launches. This looks to me like a very large missile traveling away at an angle. It’s the angle that can make it look like it is going slow. Much like when you are on a straight road in the desert a car can look like it is sitting still when in fact it traveling at high speeds directly towards you. The thickness of the plume makes me believe missile over an airplane. The light from the object and the blur you see suggests a long distance. You can only see the flame like that on the larger ones. I will never say I can’t be wrong but I feel certain on this one.
I’m an airline pilot. I see these kinds of contrails from jets all the time.
“”””” Ric Werme says:
November 10, 2010 at 6:32 pm
George E. Smith says:
November 10, 2010 at 5:23 pm
> Now the Pentagon says it is coming from the Horizon; so where is it heading to; and if it is going to LAX; why is it still so high ?
It’s not going to LAX. Flight AWE808 is a daily flight from Hawaii to Phoenix. There will be lots of people looking for it while its still approaching the coast during sunset. “””””
Well Rick, if it was going to Phoenix; then the altitude would be no mystery; and note I said “if” it was going to LAX; so nobody said it “was” going to LAX.
One of the things that threw me, and maybe still does, is that the video showed the “object” curving to the north, which made it look like a rocket curving over as it rose, and begs the question of why would it shift to the north if it was coming from Hawaii and going to Phoenix; why wasn’t it over San Diego, instead of North of Catalina.
But that flight path map above seems to fit pretty much with what I observed in the video; the little dog leg to the north and then a curve the other way.
I could take a wild guess, and suggest that the flight path near LAX could be a precautionary plan to put planes in the vicinity of LAX should it have fuel shortage problems; say because of some wild head wind situation; and LAX would be a better destination than San Diego for a really big plane in an emergency landing situation; not that SD is any slouch of a place.
So maybe that is the regular flight path for Hawaii-Phoenix flights.
The CBS news bulletin I saw, said that the cameraman said it came from the vicinity of Catalina north about 30 miles offshore.
If the helicopter was a mile high (5280 ft) then the geometrical horizon is at 90 miles roughly.
Well if the earth diameter is 7921 miles; which you can write as 8101 -180, and the square root of that is actually 89 miles. There would be a longer optical range because of atmospheric refraction.
But if the plane was at 37,000 feet (7 miles), and root of 7 is about 2 2/3 then the plane’s horizon distance is about 180 + 60 or about 237 miles plus refraction.
So from the helicopter, the plain trail could be 326 miles plus refraction. I’m really surprised that a contrail would (a) be so dense and (b) persist so densely for so much time; I didn’t catch the 10 minute comment from the cameraman.
The plane explanation would certainly seem to fit the bill; but it still sure as hell looks like a rocket to me.
So maybe Dr Kaku not so koo-koo with the kaka after all; my apologies to that brainiac. The two guys on Noory’s program were still full of it.
irRational Debate says November 11, 2010 at 2:55 am
“The simple fact is that contrails quite commonly do ‘hang around’ after the airplane is gone, often for literally hours. They can even grow and affect the cloudiness of the entire sky.”
ShaneCMuir says: November 11, 2010 at 8:29 am
That my friend is total and absolute hogwash!
What you are talking about there is what is commonly known as chemtrails.
Nonsense.
As a commercial pilot, I can assure you that contrails can last a very long time. I make them, I know.
They slowly spread out, and quite often what you see as high-level thin stratus is actually many lines of spread out contrails. And since they are ice, they do not ablate ‘evaporate’ very quickly.
And if you think I am up there with a bottle of chemicals, you are sadly deluded.
re: ShaneCMuir says: November 11, 2010 at 8:29 am
Shane, persistent contrails have existed as long as we’ve had flights high enough to form contrails, and that’s well documented. They’re certainly nothing new. I’m dating myself here, but I’ve watched and admired contrails, especially how persistent contrails develop and spread, since I was a little kid in the 60’s and 70’s. If you’re not aware of them having existed in the past this way, you are either too young, or you didn’t realize what you were looking at, or you weren’t observant, or you lived somewhere so remote there were few flights to create contrails and/or the air at the relevant altitudes was too dry most of the time. Its that simple.
As to period films – as a kid my brother and I used to get a lot of fun out of noticing films or TV shows that inadvertently showed contrails that you are trying to claim didn’t exist. Especially when we could point them out to our Dad who was an engineer in the aerospace industry. I’ve seen them, granted not often, but you can find them in shows like Bonanza or Rawhide if you look.
Persistent contrails are also in the scientific literature going way back.
Notice the date:
Or try:
or:
The article talks extensively about contrail growth and persistence.
Just go to http://journals.ametsoc.org/action/doSearch and search on related keywords or phrases, then you can sort by date. You’ll find a number of articles that talk about spreading contrails, persistent contrails, etc., from before the dates you are trying to claim persistent contrails didn’t exist.
re: re: ShaneCMuir says: November 11, 2010 at 8:29 am
East – west flights over Australia: http://www.flightmapping.com/maps/AustraliaNewZealand/
Sidney to Perth, Mauritius, Dubai, Singapore (a bit diagonal rather than straight E-W), and the reverse of course. Melbourne to Perth and Kuala Lumpur and the reverse.
There are quite a few more east-westerly & vice versa flights, go to http://www.qantas.com.au/travel/airlines/route-maps-australia-domestic/global/en and click on a city to see flight paths. And these are just domestic.
These are just commercial flights. I would imagine that military flights may add to the number too.
Crosspatch: November 10, 2010 at 2:23 pm Someone got video … same time next day: http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2010/11/10/blogger-solved-california-missile-mystery/
I think that’s quite convincing (if genuine and I have no reason to doubt it). Good observational evidence; a good scientific test. People who live there must see this very frequently, but the MSM has created a ‘story’ out of it. A scary story – the kind they specialise in.
Does this just go to show how effectively the MSM control what goes on in peoples’ heads, like the fact that we’re all talking about it now? Anyway the MSM has been shown to have some very dodgy sources in the past, i.e. the ones who ‘give’ them other scary movies, of bad people.
Unfortunately much careless talk herein, including claims I question:
– aircraft anti-collision flashing beacons should be visible: I doubt that due distance and limited brightness of the beacons. (I also point out that sunlight reflecting off a shiny object is bright enough to fool the eye, even more so a video camera, detail is obscured – I once took a potentially great photo of a water bomber on the surface picking up water, except sunlight reflecting off the spray made the photo useless.)
– contrails don’t corkscrew: sure they will, once far enough behind the aircraft that the strong wing-tip vortices rotate them. Basic airplane function, some people need to stop talking about what they know little of.
– contrails don’t appear immediately behind aircraft: wouldn’t that depend on exhaust mixing which depends on nozzle design, and on temperatures? I think they appear quite soon after, a gap that is hard to see from a distance with sun brightness.
– why is this the only one in the sky?: contrail formation depends on temperature thus altitude, also viewing angle is discussed herein
– which flight number?: I’ll only comment that Alaska Airlines from Mexico to SFO is rather different flight direction than Hawaii-Phoenix (people, check your facts!).
– missile launch: why would the military deny a missile launch that could have been seen by many boats and people, including some seeing the takeoff point? That theory does not make sense.
Ok, you guys that say you can’t get the vid in your areas. Use your nogging, ans try to get it in different ways from Youtube. The same vid – same title or variation may have been posted by different people. Also, try tile/ttble variations vids, from the outside of Youtube. Other vid sites may have it.
Did you see the fire in the NYC sky
http://newyork.cbslocal.com/2010/11/10/did-you-see-the-fire-in-the-nyc-sky/
re: Jose Suro says: November 11, 2010 at 5:57 am
Jose, I’ve been meaning to say that is a spectacular photo! Thanks for posting it. The convoluted looking trail you captured is somewhat reminiscent of the one I saw from Las Vegas. Here is another set of contrails that are also somewhat similar, although taken later at night than the one I saw, not nearly as bright and illuminated, and certainly from a bit of a different aspect. They’ll give folks the idea, however. This was a Minuteman II launch in 2002 from Vandenburg, with a number of snapshots of the resulting contrail over time . Click on any of the photos and they automatically switch to a large version of that photo. Several look rather amazingly like a unicorn leaping toward an upended cone… http://www.dosgatos.com/au/vafb/9-19-02-minuteman/index.html and links to a large number of photos of various launches at: http://www.dosgatos.com/vafb.htm
But, Jose, that photo of yours really is spectacular. Did you use some special filters to enhance colors? I have yet to look thru your other photos, but believe me, I will!
“”””” Rodders says:
November 11, 2010 at 10:29 am
irRational Debate says November 11, 2010 at 2:55 am
“The simple fact is that contrails quite commonly do ‘hang around’ after the airplane is gone, often for literally hours. They can even grow and affect the cloudiness of the entire sky.”
ShaneCMuir says: November 11, 2010 at 8:29 am
That my friend is total and absolute hogwash!
What you are talking about there is what is commonly known as chemtrails.
Nonsense.
As a commercial pilot, I can assure you that contrails can last a very long time. I make them, I know.
They slowly spread out, and quite often what you see as high-level thin stratus is actually many lines of spread out contrails. And since they are ice, they do not ablate ‘evaporate’ very quickly. “””””
Say Rodders,
For reasons known best to the commercial aviation people; the sky area around the down town San Jose CA area seems to be a favorite watering hole for all sorts of high altitude flights; so when I walk out to lunch it, is not at all unusual to see a dozen or more contrails of various ages going in all sorts of directions; and on some days they persist for a long time. Now today when we didn’t have a very dewy morning; there still are contrails but much faster dissipating. I watched one plane at least 20,000 feet up, laying out a pair of trails, and I watched it lay them out for about a 90 degree arc across the zenith, and although the fressh trail was quite dense, at the end of the 90 degree arc, it had flattened out to a nearly invisible transparent wisp.
But somedays they persist for hours, and then as the day moves on and starts to cool, those contrail remnants startto becoem launching sites for a cloud layer formation, and the sky between them starts to fill in. I once argued that the conditions around the edges of a cloud or trail, would be conducive to cloud growth from that surface; as I have watched many types of puffy clouds and wispy clouds slowly grow fromt heir edges.
So I am sure that contrails are a suseful source of some cloud formation; that likely would not have happened but for the disruption caused by the cloud.
And we should not forget; that cloud trails will form from engine exhaust gases; but they will also originiante from natural local humidity, due to the Bernoulli effect lowering the dew point as the plane’s surfaces pass through the cool moist air; well that’s what wing tip vortex trails are.
And I have confirmed on many occasions that contrails do form around automobiles driving after warm rainstrorms.
This is particularly common when driving over the grapevine going to or from LA, because it is also higher altitude up there.
Took me a while to realize that all of that spray simply was not water kicked up from wet roads; when you see a car surrounded by a cloud, and the road is actually quite dry; then you catch on quickly to what is going on.
http://petersantilli.com/
quote:
“China flexed its military muscle Monday evening in the skies west of Los Angeles when a Chinese Navy Jin class ballistic missile nuclear submarine, deployed secretly from its underground home base on the south coast of Hainan island, launched an intercontinental ballistic missile from international waters off the southern California coast. WMR’s intelligence sources in Asia, including Japan, say the belief by the military commands in Asia and the intelligence services is that the Chinese decided to demonstrate to the United States its capabilities on the eve of the G-20 Summit in Seoul and the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in Tokyo, where President Obama is scheduled to attend during his ten-day trip to Asia.
The reported Chinese missile test off Los Angeles came as a double blow to Obama. The day after the missile firing, China’s leading credit rating agency, Dagong Global Credit Rating, downgraded sovereign debt rating of the United States to A-plus from AA. The missile demonstration coupled with the downgrading of the United States financial grade represents a military and financial show of force by Beijing to Washington.
The Pentagon spin machine, backed by the media reporters who regularly cover the Defense Department, as well as officials of the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD), and the U.S. Northern Command, is now spinning various conspiracy theories, including describing the missile plume videotaped by KCBS news helicopter cameraman Gil Leyvas at around 5:00 pm Pacific Standard Time, during the height of evening rush hour, as the condensation trail from a jet aircraft. Other Pentagon-inspired cover stories are that the missile was actually an amateur rocket or an optical illusion….”
The second article is equally as intriguing…
@William Howard From Los Angeles:
Don’t worry William, because those of us who have worked at White Sands Missile Range understood what we were seeing.
However, for this specific case, I would ask that you to get behind the “contrail” or “swamp gas” explanations on any public forums.
You and I both know why I would ask that of you.
Mystery Missile Flash & Explosion (update 12.11.10)
I see a flash but what is it?
NORAD (I assume) has the ability to track 1000 missiles, all with different trajectories, individually.
I find it hard to believe this was some kind of stealth missile.
Only someone very,very,very stupid would launch a missile from where it might appear to be coming from.
The only people who really hoped it was real, were the Navy Anti-Sub Hunters 🙂
@William Howard From Los Angeles:
I was at White Sands Missile Range from 1979 to 1994 and ASL and oftened worked with EOD.
You and that WSMR EOD team were the most heroic people I have ever seen and you have my absolute respect!
Some of the stories that we could tell…