Military Says Missile-Like Object Wasn't Missile
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."
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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.
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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.
Copyright 2010 CBS. All rights reserved. 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."
10 Famous American UFO Reports: Fact or Fiction?
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.
Expert Thinks "Mystery Missile" an Illusion
Missile Mystery and More: Strange Sky Sightings
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.
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19) Where is the supporting evidence of a missile launch? Where is the launch site? The destination? The other witnesses in the air and at sea? By other nations? Who is claiming responsibility?
20) Why does every bit of hard evidence (radar, satellite images, flight plans, physics, photos, videos, past similar events in history) point to this being a common, everyday plane that has been misidentified by a single pilot who is not sure of what he saw?
21) Try to disprove that it is the flying spaghetti monster. :)
If you still have an open mind, consider the following things:
1) The "base" of the plume DOES NOT TOUCH the ocean or horizon line - it is clearly ABOVE the horizon line. This means it was somewhere over the horizon.
2) The "base" of the plume is the SAME COLOR as the clouds in the distance at the horizon. Again - a sign that it is a contrail rather than the start of a missile plume.
3) The "base" is allegedly the closest part - yet the video clearly shows that it is less focused and has less contrast and more atmospheric haze than the "top". Another sign that the "base" is FARTHER from the camera than the "top". Look at any picture of any kind of view into the distance - the Closer the object, the more contrast and focus and less haze it has.
4) If you were to ask for the radar signature on a missile and there were none in the area, what would the response be? It would be that there was no missile type object found. Same as if you were to ask the name of the lake you see in the desert during a mirage - it's an optical illusion so the lake would not show up on any map or be known by any guide.
5) The contrail gets DARKER as the sun sets. Missiles go UP - and AWAY from the earths shadow - and are visibly BRIGHTER as they get higher. This does none of those things over the course of the video - the whole sky gets darker including the contrail - giving us further evidence that it is horizontal and not vertical.
6) A missile launch plume will EXPAND at altitude as the pressure drops the higher you go. A contrail coming at you from a distance will expand from the rear - which is what appears to be happening here.
7) A missile launch trail is twisted and distorted as it travels higher in the atmosphere and crosses wind shears (winds going in different directions at different levels) and results in the 'straight line' being twisted about to form a squiggle within a minute or two - yet we have video - 10 minutes of video - showing this NOT happening at all. Another sign that it is horizontal and staying within the same layer of air - much like a commercial jet would do while flying.
8) There is 10 minutes of video. WHY? A missile would be out of site in about 2 minutes on even a clear day. How do we still see it for 10 MINUTES? Even NASA needs a telescope to watch the shuttle launch after a minute or two - how did a local news station get 10 minutes of video of a missile? And why is it not over the horizon and in Hawaii of that is the direction it is going?
9) Weather satellites show the contrail being HORIZONTAL and extending for hundreds of miles.
10) NOBODY ELSE has pictures of this event looking like a missile launch. Sites like contrailscience.com DO have pictures of it from another angle showing it to look like a contrail from a plane.
11) If a missile were to be launched NORTH of Catalina Island, there would be hundreds of pictures of it by tourists, drivers, folks at the beach, couples having a romantic dinner watching the sunset, security cameras, 'beach cams' on the internet, etc. But nobody would think twice of a contrail - especially as they watch it get closer and fly over head and can see the outline of a plane.
12) US Airways flight 808 was in the right location, altitude, direction, and size to produce this type of contrail illusion.
13) It was predicted that it would happen again the next day by the same flight and it did happen as reported in another board here on this site.
14) When you zoom in with a telephoto lens, you tend to loose a lot of perspective that a normal wide angle shot would give - this has the effect of flattening the image out and making it hard to judge distance in the shot. But looking at evidence in the video, you can clearly tell which part is closer, with less atmospheric haze and which part is farther away with less contrast and more haze. Yet this seems to be getting ignored.
15) Other such missile contrails have been seen in the past and have also been shown to be contrails from a plane.
16) CBS is not too hot on clearing this mystery up and devaluing their video clip, which they are cashing in on (follow the money).
17) People on both sides are giving opinions. Why? How come they are not doing analysis as I have done here with these points?
http://www.thecrponline.com//entry.php?35-A-Chinese-Boomer-In-The-Backyard
http://www.istockanalyst.com/article/viewarticle/articleid/4548858
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