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
It is the start of a new trend in Hope and Change where California is being transformed into a FlyOver State.
Don’t pay attention to the contrail/exhaust that is a misdirection.
Look at the top of the exhaust where the object should be, see that bright orange burn? That is NOT a jet burn, and it isn’t the burn from any commercial aircraft I am aware of.
That burn is akin to a reasonable size rocket/missile engine burn. Maybe it was some commercial company testing their experimental orbital launch rockets in a very poor location, maybe it was something more sinister, but it was most likely NOT a jet.
Since we are just wildly speculating, it was a dry practice shot, of new conventional ICBMs, containing multiple kinetic energy warheads (non-nuclear). This may mean we can say good-bye to Iranian and North Korea nuclear sites…soon!
The reason the exhaust looks like smoke is because the view is at such a shallow angle that you’re looking thru quite a bit of exhaust. From a side view it would look much less dense.
OT, but yrs ago I was looking up on a perfectly clear day & noticed a silvery “cylinder” traveling across the sky at high altitude. There was no sound or contrail. Though at great distance, the cylinder was quite distinct, reflecting light along its length. There were no wings or tail visible — just blue sky at its margins. When almost overhead, the sun angle changed enough that the wings & tail suddenly appeared, and it “transformed” into a jetliner.
As it happens, a couple of days ago, just before sunset, I witnessed a contrail, white, as it was being formed, from about 10 degrees above the southwest horizon to about 60 to 70 degrees above the horizon. Here in Phoenix, AZ. It was such a magnificant thing to watch I called my wife to see it with me. It was most obviously a hot fighter craft, given its steep attitude and I could see the actual aircraft it was forming behind.
It did not in the least look like this other thing. When it went out of sight, the entire contrail was visible.
This thing was no contrail. I saw many contrails when I was stationed at Offutt AFB in the 1950s.
I might add, there is one of those “flaps” of mysterious sightings going on as of now, sometimes referred to as UFO flaps. Fireballs in the sky over Canada, one well documented and captured by video image by NASA, another by another professional agency. I am not suggesting that this was a UFO.
When I lived in SoCal, on occasion I saw rocket trails as they were being formed, out over the ocean, and they looked much like this one. This one was composed of smoke, not condensing water vapor.
I also think it is interesting that the helicopter footage does not continue. Continuing it would either a) Clearly show that it is a missile as it glows long after the rest of the sky is completely dark, or b) Clearly show that it is an airliner contrail that goes dark as it flies east into shadow. So they tape a part of the story that they can sensationalize to the masses. And people who should know better fall for it. The guys in the chopper would never stop taping a developing story. I’m sure they are having a pretty good laugh at it all now…
OK, contrail. Just tell us the flight number so we can check. You know how us skeptics are.
From the short clip it looks like a navy surface-to-air or cruise missile to me, rather than a con trail. Test firing or rogue missile or the Asians flexing their muscle – who knows???
It’s too bad we can’t get the exact position of the helicopter when it was shooting the footage and the time it was shot. It’d make it a lot easier to correlate it to AWE808.
The ‘contrail’s’ color at the bottom (make sure you’re looking at the correct photo) darkens, but that could be due to cirrus farther west obscuring it rather than it being a rocket plume at a lower altitude.
I’ve frequently seen sun glint off aircraft bodies when they are fully lit but my surface location is after sunset. However, the glint seems to flicker in the video and my observations have always had steady sunglint (very slowly varying, over minutes, as the sun/aircraft/observer geometry changes).
This is another video floating about of the same target observed from (I think) the Santa Barbara area. Again, if observer time/location were known, it could also help determine whether AWE808 was in the right location to produce the observed effects.
AWE808 inbound from PHNL to KPHX is the simplest explanation fitting the available facts. I don’t think we can definitively exclude a large rocket of some sort yet, but its plausibility is decreasing.
It is a high flying jet. The darker line beside the white trail proves it. It is a shadow of the contrail being projected against a much lower level overcast of haze. Had me going though, for a while.
All The Best!
It’s a flying demon sheep!
My assignment for the KUSI 10 PM News last night was explain that mystery missile launch video. I did the best I could. The telecast is on Youtube
I think the sunset effects on things in the sky can be very decieving.
REPLY: Thanks John, Well done. – Anthony
Are there any offshore oil rigs in that area?
Is there one fewer now?
Well I will put it this way. When we are trying to negotiate peace talks with other countries, and talks about getting rid of our Nuclear arsenal within those peace talks, why would we ever admit to a missle test? And who knows with the whacko Kim Jong II out there always posing the threat of pushing the button if we do show him some respect, maybe it was indeed a show down pissing contest that our Nation doesn’t want us to know about to prevent mass panic within our country.
I’m still inclined to think it’s a rocket, but not as sure as I was initially. I saw this yesterday, but it took until now to find it again. This is the very first comment at KCBS’s website story: RAW VIDEO: Mysterious Contrail Off Calif. (http://losangeles.cbslocal.com/2010/11/09/exclusive-raw-video-mysterious-missile-launch-off-california-coast/ )
Lorrie Laible
I find it intersting that no one “claims” to know about this. Yesterday we were returning from Honolulu on Hawaiian Airlines with an arrival time of 3:25 pm at LAX. Approximately 270 miles away our pilot came on the speaker and told us we would be rerouted over Big Sur California due to military maneuvers in our path. Maybe they should speak with the pilot of our flight.
November 9, 2010 at 2:44 pm | Reply | Report comment
A thin and long tornado..
And as far as it being a contrail. Well that doesn’t explain the fire that you see from the propulsion system in the rear of the missle. Just like you would see from the Space Shuttle. Which I see all the time since I live in Orlando, Fl less then 30 miles from the launch pad. Trust me folks that is some sort of missle or rocket, not a contrail from a commercial jet.
Jerry F. says:
November 10, 2010 at 8:32 am
It was US Airways Flight 808 from Honolulu to Phoenix – maybe. Via the Instapundit, a smart blogger captured from a Newport Beach, CA webcam, a repeat contrail at the same time and in the same location 24 hours later, and has correlated that to the track and time of a particular airline flight:
http://blog.bahneman.com/content/it-was-us-airways-flight-808
For crying out loud ! No wonder that Science is in such a disreputable state these days.
People just can’t even describe what they see with their own eyes.
Now the actual video shot from the Station Helicopter was available for viewing on CBSNEWS.COM all of yesterday; and that is where I saw the video shown; and that is all I have seen of the actual incident.
What I have seen and heard since has me ROFLMAO along with smoke and flames coming out of both nostrils and ears.
Let’s start at the top; might be the very top. Is Dr Michio Kaku a big enough expert scientist for you ?
Well he was consulted on one broadcast and he described it as a “contrail” from an aeroplane.
Sorry Dr Kaku; that’s plain kaka ! better stick to Physics Theory; you’re not qualified to do experimental research.
Then on George Noory’s Coast-to-Coast AM; he had two “experts” on; one of them a show regular who has very good scientific credentials; and the other one supposedly was “in the know” about secret aeroplanes, and black helicopters, and missile etc. Well talk about a heap of muddled garbage; in the end they concluded they didn’t know what it was or who done it.
Please; can people stop calling this a “Contrail” ! Contrail is short for “CONDENSATION TRAIL” and it happens typically when a fast moving aeroplane or even an automobile passes through nearly saturated (H2O) cool air, and the pressure drop due to Bernoulli’s principle causes condensation along the path. I see it happen along rainy highways all the time.
This was NOT condensing water vapor. It was SMOKE from the combustion of ROCKET FUEL.
Also the video; which also showed the ground in it, shows that the ROCKET came up from the ground (or ocean), and went near vertically up into the sky; with some bends and kinks along the way; you could see the actual vehicle in front of the smoke exhaust; and you could watch the smoke being laid out behind the ROCKET as it sped up.
Notice I do not call it a “missile”. A missile would be something sinister; a launch vehicle carrying a weapon system (offensive or defensive); but a ROCKET could be just off for a ride; and might carry a scientific payload; or maybe nothing at all.
One of those two Experts on Noory’s show; the one who was “on the inside” said it couldn’t be a satellite launch from Vandenberg or a militaru missile because “They ahve over 50 gees of acceleration, and this object didn’t accelerate like that.
Where the hell do these idiots get the idea that ground launched missiles have 50 gees acceleration. If you watch any big launches, you get the idea that these things are set up to barely get off the ground (yes I exaggerate). As thy burn through fuel, they of course do pick up acceleration; but you don’t want too high an acceleration; because that means your rocket engine is too big and heavy for the vehicle.
Kookoo Kaku, siad this wasn’t a rocket because it wasn’t headed for Kwajalein; like a lot of Vandenberg shots are.
I have no idea who fired what; but it WAS a rocket making smoke; not a contrail; and it was not any kind of aeroplane. It would seem that the military do know exactly what it was and who did it; and they haven’t said too much yet.
But people who have worked at Vandenberg and in the Rocket business, say they launch stuff from that offshore launch site all the time; and they aren’t about to tell us ahead of time.
Unless you want to concoct some hollywood special effects creation on the computer; that CBS affiliate simply played the bag man for; this was simply a surface launched rocket and whoever did it knows exactly what it was. Mother Gaia knows too since she sees everything.
My theories..
1) It’s a perspective problem.
2) The A380’s engine oil leak is worse than we thought, explaining the density of the contrail
3) Astute’s run aground again. Cost overruns explained by excessive size of distress flare
4) Columbian drug smugglers upping the ante and arming their subs
5) NASA’s had enough of GISS bringing them into disrepute and sent them on a field trip
Least likely to me would be CBS’s suggestion that it’s to send a message to Asia. Like they don’t know about US SLBMs? If it’s a missile, more likely the reverse.
I’m chuckling in large part because of an unpleasant encounter with a “chemtrails” conspiracy theorist who kicked me off his blog and swore at me after I posted information on the variety of contrails and aircraft flight patterns.
Never mind he went out of his way to praise my posts exposing climate alarmists, he is a real emotionalist (holds his beliefs on emotions and has abusive emotions when someone challenges him with facts).
Unfortunately a “media meteorologist” named Mark Madryga is aslo a chemtrails fanatic connected to the jerk.
REPLY: Note to commenters, we don’t discuss “chemtrails” on this forum. Any further posts on chemtrails will be deleted wholesale. – Anthony
Here’s a link to a photo showing another contrail at the exact same time yesterday (the day after all the excitement).
http://www.bahneman.com/liem/tmp/it_was_awe808.png
It sure looks like US Airways flight 808 to me, which is a daily flight. Let’s get over this and move on.
This seems to have the most logical explanation I’ve seen so far.
http://www.examiner.com/weather-in-los-angeles/missile-launch-over-southern-california-explained
In the Fox news clip, the “base” of the trail is more brightly lit by the sunset
than the “top”, which helps confirm that it is farther west, as well as high up.