Jet contrails from some angles look like missile trails
THIS IS AN OUTDATED OVERFLOW SITE. PLEASE GO TO
contrailscience.com
UPDATE – After geting a new photo of the trail, Liam Bahneman told me he was now siding with it being his second choice, UPS902. Having reviewed the evidence, I fully agree that UPS902 is a much better fit than AWE808, especially when viewed against the composite photo.
UPS902 Turns out to be a much better fit
Note to the media – since this was almost certainly Flight UPS902 from Hawaii to Ontario, why not have a camera crew somewhere in the vicinity (does not need to be exact, or a chopper), next time the flight is scheduled to go by, and if the weather is right you’ll see the same trail again. (or check the web cam)
Note to everyone else – If you have photos of the Nov 8 contrail from any angle, please email them to uncinus@gmail.com
[This post was originally from Jan 19th, 2010. I’ve updated it with information about the “Mystery Missile” contrail of Nov 8, 2010, at the bottom of this post. Clearly it’s the same thing]
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 kind of contrail confusion is nothing new. This article appeared in The San Mateo Times, Jan 12, 1950:
Here’s some more shots of the same contrail. Click these for larger images:
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 so far away the effects of perspective are greatly diminished, meaning the actual width of the contrail is what is creating the illusion. Imagine if 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=r+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)
Looking at the satellite image for noon on that day (12/31/2009) and the next day (1/1/2010), we see contrails in approximately the same position, and around 100 miles long, showing it’s quite possible, given the right weather.
Really what makes this odd looking is the position of the people taking the photo. Obviously the same contrail would be visible all the way up the coast, however the only people who though it was really odd were those who were lined up with it, in OC. People in LA would see a dramatic looking contrail, but more obviously just a contrail, so less worthy of writing to the newspaper about. I actually saw it myself, but was in a car, and could only get a poor cell-phone snapshot:
A cell-phone photo I took of the New Year Eve contrail, from an angle that shows it's just a jet contrail
That was from somewhere around San Diamas, on the 210 freeway, so I’m looking South West, probably around 45 degree the the contrail, which you can only see a bit of behind the Home Depot sign. It looked quite impressive at the time. But there are other photos of it from various other angles which show it’s contrail-ness more clearly, here’s one taken from Santa Monica (click photo for original):
The actual New Years Eve contrail, viewed from Santa Monica. This is what the CBS "missile" contrail would have looked like to most people in LA, which is why nobody reported it.
You can see from this angle (and taken a bit earlier) it looks far less interesting, as it’s very apparent it’s just a contrail.
Scott Methvin sent in these two images which shows the contrail in all it’s missile-like glory, but from a better angle.
The Dec 31st contrail, from Laguna Beach
Same contrail slightly later.
Here’s another angle of the New Year’s Eve contrail, this view is from Corona del Mar, about 20 miles Northeast of San Clemente:
Another angle on the New Years Eve contrail. See, it's all about perspective.
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 some more contrails at sunset (From a very nice set of contrail photos), note how they look exactly the same as sections of the New Year contrail:
Obviously not missiles. But look at sections of the trails.
Not a missile launch, in Michigan.
[Update Nov 9 2010]
Now here’s the one everyone is actually talking about. From Monday Nov 8th 2010, this time it video taken a local CBS news crew in a helicopter, so they were able to zoom in.
Jet contrail, misidentified as a missile launch, again.
Note it’s pretty much in the same location. Note also it’s not exactly moving at missile speed. Note also it’s practically identical to the photos of plane contrails, above.
Same as last time, maybe even the same scheduled flight.
And once again millions of people failed to notice, because from any other angle it looked like what it was, a contrail, from a plane. Must be a slow news day, as this went all the way up to Jim Miklaszewski asking people at the pentagon about it.
There are occasional flashes of light, which I think are reflections of the sun off a flat surface on the plane. There’s also portions of the video where a bit of the trail behind the plane seems to glow. I think thats just the last rays of the setting sun lighting that portion of the trail. See Scott Methvin’s photos, above for how the trail can be oddly lit from minute to minute.
Here’s a better video. You can see after about 0:50 it’s out of the contrail-persisting region of air, and is just leaving a short contrail. It’s also now out of the sun. It looks exactly like the short contrails of a jet coming towards the camera with perspective foreshortening. The camera crew lost it in the darkness shortly after that.
The most likely flight is US Aiways flight 808 from Hawaii to Phoenix.
http://flightaware.com/live/flight/AWE808
US Airways flight 808, at around 5PM PST (Sunset)
I snapped the above web image at around 5:05PM today, about the same time as the video was taken yesterday.
Here’s the actual track from the 8th:
http://flightaware.com/live/flight/AWE808/history/20101108/1955Z/PHNL/KPHX
And here’s a photo I took (Nov 9th) two minutes earlier from Santa Monica. I think it’s the same flight, just 24 hours later. Note that the angle is exactly the same as the Dec 31st contrail that produced the original “missile” story.
Contrail from flight 808
Obviously the video would have to have been taken from way off to the right in this photo (I’m looking South West). The chopper would have been somewhere like Torrance.
[Update again]
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2010/11/cameraman-who-filmed-mystery-missile-describes-spectacular-sight.html
The cameraman reports:
Cameraman Gil Leyvas shot video of a luminous point hurtling through the sky followed by a long vapor trail. He said he was aboard the television station’s helicopter shooting footage of the sunset over the ocean about 5:15 p.m when he noticed the spiral-shaped vapor trail and zoomed in to get a better look.
The onboard camera showed a plume twisting up from the horizon and narrowing as it climbed into the sky near Catalina Island, about 35 miles west of Los Angeles, he said.
“Whatever it was, it was spinning up into the sky kind of like a spiral,” and was easy to distinguish from condensation trails from jets, he said. “It was quite a sight to see. It was spectacular.”
I suspect what he saw (which can only be what is on the video, I’d like to see it in HD) is the twisting of the contrails, this can be quite dramatic, especially from such a head-on angle. See this video of a similar perspective, and note the swirling twists in the contrails directly behind the jet.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xl6iR7w7a_Q
Here’s a grab from that video, showing the twist, and how it as accented by low sun.
Twisting contrails in low sun.
Liem Bahneman gives this excellent description of how flight AWE808 exactly matches the observations, including producing a near identical contrail the next day (which I also photographed, from Santa Monica, above)
This pretty much explains it.
And here’s some excellent points from a real rocket scientist, posting as “Michael”:
I’d like to add to all the evidence above that it was just a jet, because the plume is nothing like a rocket plume to the trained eye. I was a rocket safety inspector for 3 years, have seen countless launches and failures, and have a master’s degree in Astronautical Engineering. Here’s why it’s not a rocket:
It’s too slow (<— biggest reason).
There’s no engine flare.
There’s no expansion of the plume (as the chamber pressure exceeds the atmospheric pressure more and more during flight).
There’s no staging event.
There’s no sunset striations across the plume (which would look like this: http://tinyurl.com/2vklwu5).
In the wide shot there’s two contrails (off each wing!) instead of one.
The plume at the plane is twirling in different directions (very un-rocket-like).
The plume at the plane is twirling too much — that only happens in the case of a motor burn-through, which is a failure mode, meaning it would be seconds from exploding if it were a rocket.
The wind-blown plume is all wrong, vertical plumes go through several different wind shear layers, which makes it look very different than what the video shows.
The apparent direction of the jet is a bit of an illusion, as the trail is greatly distorted by the winds at altitude, which can also vary greatly from place to place. At 37,000 feet the wind can easily be in the 50-100 mph range.
Richard Warren of Los Angeles shot four close-up photos of the trail from a fixed position in Lon Beach. I’ve combined them here into one photo, where you can see the trail move with the wind, and the actual path that the plane takes is much more obviously passing to the south of Long Beach, matching flight 808.
And the fact that it’s a plane is way more apparent once it stops making a contrail (which is due to it moving between two regions of air – it’s colder and/or more humid out to sea than inland)
Richard took a fifth shot at a wider angle that shows the greater context. The jet is still visible as a dark speck (it’s still got a very short contrail). There’s also a very impressive crepuscular “edge” shadow that’s probably cast by part of the contrail that is over the horizon.
711 Comments
Trackbacks
- U.S. Pentagon Can't Explain Mystery Missile Off California Coast - Page 3
- Mysterious submarine missile launch not an accident « alienspacecentereast's blog
- Jet contrails from some angles look like missile trails (via Contrail Science Overflow) « My Secret Otaku LIfe
- Missile Missive | Improbable Frontiers
Comments are closed.
Contrail Science Overflow 
RE: ‘Richard Warren of Los Angeles shot four close-up photos of the trail from a fixed position in Lon Beach…”
The fifth image in that series shows a beautiful shadow, reminiscent of the contrail shadows seen here: http://www.atoptics.co.uk/atoptics/contr2.htm
Bob, you say “I’m also not stupid nor naive” but then go on to say things that seem to be just that. Let me show you an example.
You bring out coordinates of a RIM-2 launcher and say, in effect, “Aha! I found a missile launcher off the coast of California! That proves it was a missile!”
If you can’t see how naive that is, then nothing in the rest of this post will help you.
Bob, all of our borders are covered with missile launchers, obviously. That’s not the point. The point is that the object itself looks absolutely nothing like a rocket.
You say “We have all seen airplane contrails; Nov.8 was a not a contrail” but again, you’re doing the naive thing called false dichotomy. You’re saying, “It doesn’t look like a normal contrail, therefore it must be a missile.” But that doesn’t make sense. It’s only a missile if it looks like a missile, and it doesn’t look like a missile! Let me show you 1 reason out of many…
Any rocket going vertically up through the atmosphere during sunset would leave a multicolored trail. The different colors of the sunset would be shown on the different heights of the plume. It always looks the same. Red on bottom, white on top, rainbow in-between. That’s because the top of the plume is in full sunlight and the bottom is in sunset.
It looks like this, or like this, or like this, or even like this.
It does NOT look like this!
It is not red on bottom. It is not white on top. It is not rainbow in-between. Why? Because it is not vertical! It’s a horizontal cloud that goes all the way to the horizon, and the Earth curves down so it looks vertical.
That’s 1 reason. There are at least a dozen others.
I know what your brain is doing right now. It’s saying “If I can think of a way this rocket plume would not be vertical, then it’s still a rocket!”
Wrong. False dichotomy.
You’re not stupid Bob. You’re just guilty of using false dichotomies. You don’t understand that thinking of a possibility is not the same as finding evidence for your idea.
The evidence is clear. It’s not a rocket.
thanks for the name calling.
I’ll be the one with the last laugh. Enjoy your ‘dreamworld’.
Ok folks, it might have not been a missile, but it wasn’t a an airplane either. Ever heard of chemtrails? Weather manipulation? Or let me guess that’s just a conspiracy theory as well, isn’t it?
You people are brainwashed! This was not a regular airplane!
Chemtrails Geo-Engineering Background
The AP has recently reported that the Obama administration held discussions regarding ”geo-engineering” the earth’s climate. In these meetings, recommendations were made to offset global warming by ”shooting pollution particles into the upper atmosphere to reflect the sun’s rays.” John P. Holdren, Obama’s science advisor, thinks we might be desperate enough to use this approach even though he admits that it could have “grave side effects.”
Evidence suggests that several different chemicals are already being released into our air in the form of chemtrails. Yes, people are intentionally dispersing pollutants into our atmosphere to alter weather patterns and reflect the heating effects of the sun.
Governments, universities and other prominent communities refer to these chemical sprays as geo-engineering and argue for it’s many benefits. Others call these sprays chemtrails and believe our environment and human health is at risk. The chemicals being used are Sulfur Dioxide, Aluminum Powder and Barium Oxide. They are all known contaminating particulate matter and toxic poisons.
There you go, mystery solved.
It seems to me that a close examination of the “original tapes shot by the various camera that captured the contrails should provide luminosity data. It seems that there was a very large “bright” spot at the head of the contrail. This is why many believed it was a missile.Using simple astronomical techniques, it should be possible o measure the luminosity and as such deduce a temperature range of the “bright spot” A missile would have a very high temperature signature, a turbine engine or a sun reflection or even refracted sunlight would give an entirely different signature.
Most likely this was done by someone, but you would have to use the original tapes as copies even digital can produce spurious results and/or be doctored easily.
http://news.discovery.com/space/examining-official-explanation-of-the-mystery-missile.html#mkcpgn=rssnws1
1) According to the Federal Aviation Administration, radar in the area did not reveal any fast-moving unknown targets. A missile would have been picked up on radar, while a jet would not have been flagged as unusual.
2) No trace of the alleged missile has been seen falling into the water off the coast of Los Angeles, nor has the missile or any part of it been recovered; it seems to have simply vanished into the sky. If the contrail was created by a plane, of course, no falling missile would be seen nor found.
3) The object seen in the video moves like a jet, not a rocket. As Michio Kaku, a physics professor at City University of New York noted on Good Morning America, “The trail seems to change direction. Ballistic missiles don’t do that. It doesn’t accelerate. Ballistic missiles accelerate up to 18,000 miles per hour, this is traveling at a constant velocity.” While missiles accelerate greatly during launch, aircraft typically maintain a constant cruising speed once they have reached the desired altitude — exactly as the videotape shows.
4) There is no record of any missiles being fired at the location and time of the sighting, while there are records of commercial jets in the area at the time. One blogger, Liem Bahneman, has tentatively identified the route and flight number as US Airways Flight 808 from Honolulu, Hawaii, to Phoenix, Arizona.
5) Perhaps most damaging to the missile theory, the only people who saw (and recorded) the mysterious phenomenon were in one television helicopter videotaping the sunset. None of the nearly 4 million people living in Los Angeles noticed the “missile” launch, and pilots flying in the area reported seeing nothing unusual — and certainly not a missile being launched. This is very strong evidence that the phenomenon was only unusual from one unique perspective; that is, people looking at the same thing from different distances and angles recognized what it was, or didn’t think it was strange. This supports the jet theory, and discredits the missile theory.
Tom P, that technique might get you to a temperature range if the light you were measuring was from a star — you know, red meaning about 3000C, white about 6000C, etc. However, our best experts have determined that this is not a star. Many of those same experts claim that not all white things have a temperature of 6000C.
Care for another go? This is fun.
Bob’s Attorney, you wouldn’t happen to be a patent attorney, would you? A fellow a ways up the thread has this really spiffy idea for slow missiles — you guys should talk.
“You’re not stupid Bob.”
I beg to differ.
“You’re just guilty of using false dichotomies. You don’t understand that thinking of a possibility is not the same as finding evidence for your idea. ”
Irrational mental processes that only randomly reach correct conclusions are inconsistent with intelligence. And Bob is only one of the many such stupid people posting here. Consider Craig Halbert, who wrote
“I’ve seen dozens of live missile launches and this was absolutely not a contrail.”
and all those who wrote something similar and, per the Dunning-Kruger effect, have no clue as to how illogical a statement it is. It’s like someone seeing a legless lizard for the first time saying “I’ve seen dozens of snakes and this is absolutely not a lizard”. Unlike the mere similarities in these cases, this sort of illogical, irrational, thinking, which makes erroneous conclusions nearly as likely as correct ones, really truly is a form of stupidity.
“thanks for the name calling”
That’s rich, Bob, coming from someone whose first post reads
Bob, you’re stupid and vile and haven’t an intellectually honest bone in your body.
“I’ll be the one with the last laugh.”
Laughing is easy, Bob; being right is a lot harder.
“Enjoy your ‘dreamworld’.”
With a bunch of Tea Party anti-science wackos as stupid and vile as you are having just been voted in, this is far from a dreamworld, jackass.
… again believe what you want; you are nothing but sheep.
Wrong again. Sheep can’t type. I and many other participants are human. Given enough time and cash on the barrelhead, I’m pretty sure I can prove it.
The picture from Uncinus dated Nov 11 2010 1:05 pm is proof positive that this is a jet aircraft flying at a constant altitude and not a missile climbing from the surface because the clouds in the picture are dark indicating that the sun has already set and that the sun is no longer illuminating anything below a certain altitude. If it were a missile and the plume started at the surface, it would be shadowed at the lower elevation and brightly colored at higher elevations due to the sun’s reflected light. That’s not what is seen. The entire cloud trail is entirely illuminated indicating the the entire plume is high above the surface of the Earth and the only thing that would make a constant elevation cloud trail is a jets contrail.
So… as I said before, “sheeple”, step back from the edge before you get hurt.
I’ve seen enough rocket launches to know the difference between a contrail and smoke at increasing altitude. This was from a solid fuel rocket. I could see the exhaust flame from the rocket and wind shear while gaining altitude.
I’ve seen enough rocket launches to know the difference between a contrail and smoke at increasing altitude. This was from an airliner. I could see the sun reflected off either the fuselage or the wings and saw it change course slightly while remaining at roughly the same altitude.
Understanding perspective: Helps build strong minds twelve different ways.
“What In the World Are They Spraying?” — Google it, watch the documentary, and lets strengthen this grass-roots movement.
As someone mentioned before me, this website was created by a company with an agenda; The agenda of Geo-engineering.
Have a nice day!
How dare US Airways sully the airways with their condensation? The very nerve. Unmitigated gall, more like!
@Skip Howlett
So you think this was a solid rocket that burned for 10 minutes straight while the video was being taken?
I invite you to go calculate how big the rocket would have to be for that to happen. To give you an idea, the Space Shuttle’s 2.6 million-pound solid rocket boosters only burn for 2 minutes.
Apparently you have not been to enough rocket launches to have a clue as to what you’re talking about.
As a point of conversation, I was briefly outside yesterday, looking at the sky and cloud cover not much before this event occurred, noticing Jupiter and that the aircraft over head in the sky at the time were not producing contrails of any lasting nature or great size.
As an avid observer of all things and former US Navy weapon systems technician and one that stayed close to the defense sector have witnessed firsthand Terrier, Minotaur, Atlas, Delta, Titan and other launches including last Friday’s launch of the Delta II from Vandenberg and from what I can determine from the news video looks very much like a rocket or missile launch.
The news video, clearly showing where the launch vehicle lifted from the ocean surface much like a sea launch ICBM. After further examination of the video, can identify what looks to be a momentary vertical accent phase, normal to the ocean surface followed by a “role maneuver”, suggesting a vertical launch orientation of the vehicle and not horizontal such as from a torpedo tube for a sub launched Tomahawk missile. Thus, producing a short and clean vertical accent, void of a departure angle relative to the water surface.
The vehicle, as seen in the video, leaves little doubt that the vehicle is travelling at velocities much greater than what a non hypersonic or supper sonic aircraft is capable of achieving. This is deduced from the size to the “gilt” of light, at minimum intensity, at what appears to be the rear of the craft relative to the size of the plum immediately aft of the craft.
Judging from the orientation of the exhaust plum, relative to the direction of the setting sun and position of shadow line along the length of the plume does not suggest that this light from the rear of the vehicle is a reflection from the sun. Instead, that this light is the product of a very energetic chemical reaction. The width of the plume, relative to the length of the plumes path and apparent velocity of the vehicle strongly suggest that the combustion rate is magnitudes greater than that of a jet aircraft.
Presuming no foreign entity is responsible for this event, looks similar to an SLICBM. But, should this event not be precipitated by the US Navy or some other US armed service, then this apparent missile launch does have me very concerned.
My background to make such statements and formulated opinions comes from my time as a former US Navy weapons technician and operator. A person that in the past, participated in exo atmospheric experiment on so called Star Wars experiments including being on VOX during missions involving the Space Shuttle, to having flown jet and prop aircraft, having found over 400 astronomical objects including all Messier objects by the time I was 18, taken hundreds of astronomical and atmospheric photos, some published in books and magazines and today a laser physicist and author of an IRAD study titled US Naval Weapons Analysis for Northrop Grumman, Directed Energy Systems.
Did you even take time to read that before you pasted it in from one of the several other sites where it’s posted, plagiarist? (See what I did there? That’s right, I spelled it correctly.) “Role maneuver”? “Supper sonic”? Please be so kind as to post an image of your discharge papers to assuage our deep concerns about your career. Thanks.
Unless you’re pulling our collective legs, of course, in which case: Well done!
Plagarist, really, REALLY.
Your post proves my point that a large segment of the population are “sheeple” and no matter how educated or how much experience someone has, they always see what they want and not necessarily what is actually there. In the original CBS footage, as I’ve pointed out, in the clip that is panned back (before zooming in), the low clouds in the LA area are clearly visible and are dark. This indicates the sun has set and the sun isn’t illuminating anything low in the sky, let alone something on the surface. Yet the entire contrail along with the high clouds are illuminated showing that they are high in the sky. Not to mention the fact that there aren’t any eye witnesses makes this a pretty much slam dunk airplane sighting.
LoL! An airplane?! Seriously, ROFL!
You noobs! An airplane leaving such a “contrail”? Mike wtf are you being fed? Are you already
‘conditioned’ (brainwashed)?
What a joke of a website this is, its on par with Glenn Beck and FoxNews.
Public: “Looked like a missile”
Government and their minions: “No it was an airplane you idiots, go to this website to see the science behind it!”
Next they are going to tell us that we absolutely need to invade Iran because of its WMD.. Just watch..
I laugh @ Mike and all you other “it was an contrail’ people. You’ve been brainwashed to the fullest.
People who correct other people on grammar and spelling on the intrawebz make me proud. (Sarcasm)
Instead of commenting on the content of a post you call people names and point out what idiots they are. Very classy.
You have proven to be worse than the conspiracy theorists by showing your true colors, colors of hate and stubbornness.
The whole world is laughing at us; laughing because we believe the BS our government is feeding us, day in and day out.
For the obtuse: The points being made was that Plagarist 1) pasted that in from another site (you could Google a phrase or two to see) and 2) likely didn’t even bother to read it. Had he read it, maybe he would have corrected the errors, who knows?
I can’t say definitively, of course, but I’d be willing to wager quite a lot that the person who wrote it has no credentials such as those listed in the end of the pasted text. I will admit that his treatise does sound kinda sciencey if a bit long-winded because of the padding he felt necessary.
Guten Morgen: Hello from Germany! I used google to translate this article into english, please bear with the inconsistencies at some parts, but I read and understood everything. Enjoy:
It has been neither a credible explanation of the actual phenomenon delivered, which was recorded by a cameraman and has since been seen by millions, must answer for the inability of the vast American military and intelligence apparatus, also 48 hours later elementary questions about the event.
Without additional information it is impossible to accept the official explanation that recalls the request of a police officer at the site of a disaster, “Please go on. There is nothing to see. “It is quite possible that what caused the vapor, is still ongoing and that the official story of the military a few more times will be corrected.
Most American media have taken the allegations of the Pentagon either, or, as the New York Times, nothing of the potentially most serious security incident in the United States since the attacks of 11th September written.
Hundreds of billions of dollars in the last decade for action on homeland security, Homeland Security, was issued by intrusive passenger checks discover to sophisticated equipment that any approaching aircraft, ship or other vehicle, and monitor. Therefore there is no innocent explanation for the alleged inability of countless authorities – the North American Air Defense Command (NORAD), the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), the U.S. Northern Command (NORTHCOM) and the Naval Air Warfare Weapons Division – the incident to explain.
It is likely more credible that one or more of these authorities discovered some secret not only test, but have even conducted himself – with or without the approval of the highest civilian authorities in Washington. But anyone who wants to swallow the official story or not at all raises serious questions, is immediately portrayed as a champion of “conspiracy theories”.
The Pentagon is expressed in its Declaration of remarkably vague. “After the Defense Department has 36 hours internally and collected information from other government agencies is, it assumes that the vapor is probably from an airplane,” Colonel Lapan said.
All U.S. Government organizations, “with rocket and missile programs, have assured that in the period and the area in which the vapor was observed, did not start, neither planned nor accidental,” said the spokesman. He added that the military had come to this conclusion after it had reviewed a number of “data sources”. He did not agree to disclose these data sources.
Lapan claimed radar systems would have been several aircraft on Monday, but detected no missiles. On Wednesday evening focused was then CBS News in charge of his mission on allegations that a U.S. Airways plane, Flight 808 from Honolulu to Phoenix, for the vapor trail. U.S. Airways found itself unable to confirm the position that his plane had landed at 19.04 local time clock in Phoenix at the time when the vapor trail was seen, was before the Southern California coast was.
The FAA, which monitors the national airspace for civil aviation, said that she was not in a position to the location, height or direction of the vapor trail to be determined. “Without this information we can not determine its source,” said spokesman Ian Gregor. “We can not say what caused the vapor trail.”
The Naval Air Warfare Center Weapons Division operates the Point Mugu base on the mainland, which is often used for weapons tests over the Pacific. Two other bodies of government are close: the air base in Vandenberg, thirty miles in a westerly direction along the coast, and a naval base on San Nicolas Island, which was used even by NASA. He is the probable launch facility on the next.
Several security and missile experts have given thoughtful and critical comments. They do not believe the official Pentagon story, which is from group-based media now generally accepted.
Professor Theodore Postol of MIT, a trenchant critic of the anti-missile program of the Pentagon, since the Reagan administration’s their “Star Wars” fantasies set in the world, refuted in detail the official story that the contrails come from an airplane.
He told the Christian Science Monitor: “This is not an airplane contrails. As I’m sure. It looks like a big rocket. But who knows exactly how a contrail looks from a distance? “He told the paper that the video show rotational motion, as known from intercontinental long-range ballistic missile (ICBM). The vapor trail “has spirals, as one would expect in a large solid rocket,” he said.
Postol said that the FAA air traffic control radar of the cause of the vapor trail did not lay near discovered, it was probably a rocket that was moving so fast that they caused on their control screens only a one-time flash. On the other hand, NORAD would have discovered a rocket with certainty: “No doubt had the early warning satellites of the North American Air Defense Command noted that,” he told the Monitor.
The naval expert Raymond Pritchett told Wired.com: “If someone shoots 35 miles from the second largest city in the country (at sea and in international waters), an unannounced missile and can NORAD Eighteen hours later give absolutely no explanation, then this complete absence of information a great threat to national security. If NORAD can not answer the questions, then I think it’s time to put every penny in question, which is in the defense budget for missile defense. NORTHCOM must explain what it is actually white, rather than focusing on what do not know. ”
Doug Richardson, editor of Jane’s Missiles and Rockets, told the Times of London: “It is a solid rocket. This can be seen at the output [smoke]. “He said it could have been a shot-down by a submarine-launched ballistic missile, or an interceptor missile defense weapon that is fired from the ships of the Navy.
Another fact raises additional questions: An official FAA reference for pilots of the Luftwaffe (NOTAM), was a few hours before the vapor trail was filmed from a helicopter, edited. It states: “Due to an activation of W537 by the Naval Air Warfare Center Weapons Division, the following restrictions are necessary. For the security of all non-participating pilots are instructed to stay away W537. IFR traffic by ATC provisions should wait until the W537 is released …. ”
W537 is a wide strip of the Pacific Ocean, which extends southwest from Los Angeles to Santa Catalina, and the Channel Islands. The FAA notice was evident at 12:52 local time (20.52 GMT), on the day of the incident created, but the next day should be effective for a three-hour period. (14 to 17 clock clock on Tuesday, 9 November).
Basically there are 4 websites (or people) who decided that this was a 757 jet. None have any real proof or data to prove their point. Just theories and random information to support their theories.
Before the media picked up on these websites our government had no idea what it was. When the media picked up on them the government says it is “probably” a plane. Now the media is reporting it to be a plane with no proof. Right now I am almost glad the story is dying down because I have spent way too much time following it.
I have read every article I could find on the net about this. And most comments. It is pretty much half for the jet theory and half against. I am against it. It simply looks like a missile launch. Although there are some things that do raise questions, it looks much more like a missile or rocket than a passenger jet. None of the “experts” who say it is not a missile are qualified to do so. None have any real proof. And all have various reasons to stick with their story. (site traffic, fame, previous positions- i.e. pike)
As far as I know, NORAD, the D.O.D., and the FAA have not released official statements and have no information posted on their websites. A little fishy to me.
Even though this case seems to be solved in the media, it does not seem to be solved in the comments on the web. I guarantee someone in the government is monitoring these posts and all these comments, and they know that people are not convinced. The first job of government is to protect, so don’t you think they would like to put our minds at ease? If this was a passenger jet there should be no problem coming up with proof and it would have been released to the public by now. We are all being lied to but some of us can’t handle it, so we will believe anything.
No one knows for sure what that was, at least no one who has spoken out so far, and anyone claiming to know for a fact should be automatically discounted.
People need to keep asking until it is proven one way or another. I like the fact that this website has asked the media to film flight 808 and I would like them to take that a step further and ask the media why it was reported that the sky lit up in L.A. if it was a plane, and who saw it.
I live 5 miles from the space center and have seen dozens if not hundreds of launches. I have also seen jets that looked like launches at first. I have not seen or read anything to make me believe that this was not a launch. Honestly if something comes up, I still probably won’t believe it, because I trust my own judgment over anything that takes 3 or 4 days to produce.
You all can believe what you would like, but the fact that there is no real proof one way or the other, proves to me there is much more to the story. And also proves that the media and our government cannot be trusted. Whether or not it’s a jet.
After reading many of the posts here I am more afraid of the posters than any “missile” or “airplane” this might have been. Many say this is a conspiracy concocted by a large number of people in the government or military. Is this the same government or military that you say is to dumb to get anything right??? If most of you here cant organize and prove to us dummies that this is a conspiracy, we are indeed in trouble. If I believe all the expertise claimed here, our government and military have to be the dumbest people in the world and they would not be able to perfect this ongoing conspiracy!!
To conspire to do anything requires any number of people. It would take very few of these people to blow the conspiracy by telling someone or screwing something up. You want me to believe that this event is being covered up by some group of conspirators so well organized within the government and military that none of the thousands of co-conspiritors ever make a mistake or crack and say something??? This hugh volume of posts claimes everything from a missile launch done by mistake to an attack by North Korea and orchestrated by no less than Obama. You see that is why he is out of the country now!
If it is a conspiracy, all of you are being tracked and examined.They have nothing to fear from you as all you seem to be able to do is chat about it. PROVE IT!
It is either that or you have nothing constructive to do with large amounts of free time. We really do need to find jobs for the people of the US and gain our self respect back.
lllcornlll, since you say you live 5 miles from the space center, I’ve got to ask the question “has there ever been a rocket/missile launch at the space center that wasn’t witnessed by anyone”? because if this was a missile launch here in LA, then that’s the case. The only eye witness to the event was the helicopter crew and no one else. Of the several million people who could have seen it, not one person on the ground has come forward and said they saw a missile launch. This story doesn’t exist in LA. It only exists on the internet.
I read in 2 different articles that it lit up the sky in L.A., I think that needs to be looked into.
But more importantly, it is not a story in L.A., but you happen to be reading comments on this site at 3 am. Weird.
I think we ought to seriously consider holding our breath until the government announces that they intend in future to devote quite a lot of their resources to chasing down every odd-looking thing reported by anyone anywhere. Don’t even get me started about all those wild geese — I mean, what are they up to, with their flying around willy-nilly, migrating north and south, honking at us as if to mock us? What language is that, anyway? Doesn’t sound like the Canadian language to me. Why is nobody addressing this suspicious avian behavior?
Gee…I remember the early days, way back on Monday, in that moment when I first saw a screenshot from the video and immediately thought, “Man, what a gorgeous shot of an aircraft contrail. I’d love to take a picture like that.” What a different world we live in today.
P.S. lllcornlll, you do know that it’s not the same time of day everywhere on the planet, right? See that you remember that next time and there may be a small prize for you later. Also, what were you doing posting at that time? This may not look good on your permanent record, you know. Not that I’m saying that there is one.
But Bobbo, I have also been wondering about that. I don’t have an explanation for that. I want to know why no one is interviewing possible witnesses myself. But I’m sticking with my first reaction. It looks more like a rocket engine exhaust than a contrail from a 757. This is from the Air Force and it is about contrails. I don’t see a jet contrail that looks like this one did but I do see missile contrails that look like this one. http://www.af.mil/shared/media/document/AFD-051013-001.pdf
uh Mike it was 3am for him, 6am for me but thanks.
When I said that about Bobbo I didn’t realize he had posted before and probably was getting emails too. Then I realized my mistake, so my bad on that. I think he makes about the only valid point I have heard. I also wonder why no other witnesses have been found. But that doesn’t prove anything. I lean toward some kind of rocket and I want to see proof it isn’t. Not theories.
In any case, I think you’re probably right to go back to that first reaction. Thanks to Stephen Colbert, we’ve known for the last five years what we always suspected: Gut reactions just feel truthier, warmer, and more comforting. Therefore, they are the best.
Speaking of which, I still need much more proof that that 747 didn’t almost hit the Golden Gate Bridge during Fleet Week in San Francisco last month. It was on all the news channels. Sure, some of them came back in later days, after the kerfuffle they had generated and then discussed at length died down, to explain about telephoto lens foreshortening, but that means nothing to my gut. Show my gut the radar track and let my gut speak with the pilot and co-pilot, please. Nobody should argue with me about how flight crews have neither the time nor the energy for such patriotic duties. My guy knows what’s best.
I like the debate but could you please make it relevant. I mean seriously, if it was a jet how can some bloggers, a weatherman, and a guy who is against missile defense figure it out before the FAA, NORAD, and the D.O.D.?
sure got quiet
what about the “Johnathan Bewindle” comment from the local page.
http://losangeles.cbslocal.com/2010/11/09/exclusive-raw-video-mysterious-missile-launch-off-california-coast/
Yes, lllcornlll, because you refreshed several times and saw no added comments, you have indeed won. This will save everybody a lot of their precious time. Why someone didn’t think of this before is beyond me. My hearty congratulations.
Let’s all promise to get back together next month when the next inexplicable thing which is pretty darned explicable is run through the wringer, spun six ways from Sunday, and driven into the ground by our friends the news guys. Well, newsy guys.
As a very wise man once said, “It’s a long way to Tipperary…it’s a long way to go. This is Ted Baxter, saying good night and good news.”
Thanks E, been looking for something like that. I don’t know if I believe it but it could be true. And he is right, we should be concerned. Any way you look at it. If it was a jet our government should have figured it out right away. Not an almost pilot, a blogger, a weatherman, and a Council of Foreign Relations member who is against missile defense. If we launched a missile, we are being lied to. If someone else launched a missile then we are in trouble.
lol Mike you are a trip. You should be in politics because you talk a lot but don’t say anything. Have you ever seen that double talker guy? You remind me of him.
Mike is the owner of this website posting under a different name.
This website belongs to a company with an agenda. Don’t believe those suckers trying to tell us it was a commercial airplane. Please, get real! THE FUMES or SMOKE is WAY WAY WAY WAY WAY WAY WAY to thick. And the the glare is supposed to be a WINDOW? PLEASE LOL! 30miles away and you can see the reflection of a WINDOW 15inches long? PLEASE, stop fooling us.
It was either the fucking chinese as some website report or the US. Both a show of force. If it was the chinese it is reportef it was a JL-2 ICBM missile shot from a Jin class submarine.
Enjoy your day full of bs.
Wow BB, it is odd how Mike is posting pretty much 24hrs a day.
Only because it’s the most fun I’ve had in ages. If I were the owner of the site, it would be twice this fun, but I can’t claim the credit. But do feel free to invent another adjunct to your conspiracy theories if it makes you happy. It sure makes me happy, because people with malleable brains are fun to play with.
Don’t airplanes typically have blinking lights?