Mystery Missile Launch in California

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The Pentagon is investigating a potential missile launch off the coast of Southern California after a video surfaced showing an object ascending into the sky, leaving a significant contrail. Various military officials, including those from the Navy and NORAD, are examining the footage. Some experts suggest the contrail could be an unusually distinct vapor trail from an aircraft, rather than a missile, which would explain why it went undetected by radar. The discussion highlights skepticism about the initial media portrayal of the event as a missile launch, with many arguing it resembles a typical jet contrail illuminated by sunset. Observers note that the lack of reports from air traffic control and the absence of a visible missile fireball further support the contrail theory. The incident has sparked speculation and conspiracy theories, despite the prevailing belief that it was likely an optical illusion caused by atmospheric conditions. The media's handling of the story, including sensational headlines, has drawn criticism for potentially misleading the public.
  • #31
edward said:
It could be a contrail, but I have never seen one that wasn't split at its source. What was seen on radar?
No fast moving objects were seen on radar.

Just found this article on BBC: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-11731014 titled "Pentagon says aircraft caused mystery 'missile' trail".

Not that I suspect that will stop conspiracy theories. LOL
 
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  • #32
Grep said:
No fast moving objects were seen on radar.

Just found this article on BBC: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-11731014 titled "Pentagon says aircraft caused mystery 'missile' trail".

Not that I suspect that will stop conspiracy theories. LOL

From Grep's link:

Some physicists said earlier on Tuesday they believed the trail had been left by an aircraft, and that on a clear day vapour can appear to rise vertically as the result of an optical illusion.

...but no source is given for the physicists. Could they be referencing this thread, I wonder :biggrin:?
 
  • #33
The light / shadow on the trail suggests indeed that this contrail is at high level all the way, otherwise the bottom part would have been redder and darker in the setting sun.

Also a vertical launched missile will not appear on Air Traffic Control radar. (why?)
 
  • #34
Andre said:
The light / shadow on the trail suggests indeed that this contrail is at high level all the way, otherwise the bottom part would have been redder and darker in the setting sun.

Also a vertical launched missile will not appear on Air Traffic Control radar. (why?)

I'm not familiar with ATC radar. However, for a radar to track an object over time, there would have to be some way to correlate the blips from one radar return to the next.

Doppler shift (i.e. range rate) would be a logical method. The object's blip in the next frame should roughly match the object's predicted location based on it's location and range rate from the previous frame. Actually, the predicted location would have to be a range of predicted locations since range rate would only yield the radial velocity, not the tangential component. Until the next position is received, the range rate from the first observation can't be completely interpreted.

The range rate from a vertical missile could be a problem for a system looking to correlate returns for objects moving mostly horizontally.
 
  • #35
That's it indeed. both doppler and logic are used to filter out static clutter and slow moving targets in the horizontal plane (birds, precipitation areas etc).

However given the uncertainties in the system, primary tracking is hardly used, instead one relies mostly on secondary tracking of transponders, the radar sending out a particular interrogation signal and a responder on the aircraft answers, from which direction and range and altitude are derived. Consequently aircraft without working transponders are invisible for this method, so are missiles without transponders.

Reason why military radars will always maintain primary tracking. Also why the excuse- didn't see anything on radar - is moot.
 
  • #36
The video was supposedly taken from a helicopter. Watch closely just as the video starts. There is another airplane in view just for a few seconds. It is much higher than the helicopter.

The second plane apparently didn't report seeing anything. If the contrail was from a plane coming into the LA area it should have been on Air traffic control radar.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ysTDh6R9N8E
 
  • #37
  • #38
Andre said:
The light / shadow on the trail suggests indeed that this contrail is at high level all the way, otherwise the bottom part would have been redder and darker in the setting sun.

..

Let me elaborate.

the bottom part of the trail is very light hence it is still in the sun while the low clouds (haze) at the horizon and close in -at the top of the frame- are dark. so it's some time past sunset and the seemingly lower part of the trail must still be very high to be in the sunlight.

So it's not vertical but horizontal and the aircraft contrail just was the seed to grow into a cloud under the correct meteorological conditions

win7p.jpg
 
  • #39
BobG said:
Wow! It happened again almost exactly 24 hours later!

US Airways Flight 808?

Two missile launches in two days, the military is up to something big...
 
  • #40
I'm a little confused here. Did people actually see this missiles being launched or did people just suddenly look and see a big contrail? I was under the impression that people witness an actual object that resembled the shape of a missile traveling through the sky.
 
  • #42
Topher925 said:
I'm a little confused here. Did people actually see this missiles being launched or did people just suddenly look and see a big contrail? I was under the impression that people witness an actual object that resembled the shape of a missile traveling through the sky.

No, a TV cameraman saw the contrail, which looked like a missile launch, and his TV station (all the way up to the parent network) couldn't pass up on a scoop. As a result, their story wasn't checked out very well.

And CBS's slant seems to be focused on the military not being immediately able to pinpoint the source of the contrail - or at least sooner than amateurs could - rather than on the attention they gave a non-story. In fact, the military only seemed to tell the press what the contrail was not instead of what it was.
 
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  • #43
Ivan Seeking said:
Ah, good point. :smile:

Trivia: Did you know that the Japanese once shelled Santa Barbara?

i remembered that they attacked the west coast. i didn't remember the exact location.
 
  • #44
BobG said:
No, a TV cameraman saw the contrail, which looked like a missile launch...
Has anyone pointed out that this contrail looks nothing like a missile launch? Any missile big enough to leave such a large smoke trail will also be trailing a massive pillar of fire (that at dusk would be particularly brilliant), which this clearly lacks. Example:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TD9_WYHifRI

This report has all the quality of the 9/11 conspiracy theories where witnesses were quoted saying the plane that hit the Pentagon sounded like a missile...when in reality those people have no idea what a real missile sounds like!
 
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  • #45
Ivan Seeking said:
I knew about the incendiary bombs, and I knew a Japanese sub was once sighted in the Columbia, but I had never heard about the ships or Fort Stevens. Wow!

The Japanese had dispatched two subs, the I-25 and I-26 to the U.S. west coast.

The incendiary bombs(the sub carried a disassembled float plane in a waterproof "hanger".), Oregon coast ships and Fort Stevens attack were all due to one submarine, the I-25.


The I-26 sank a lumber ship off the coast of California on Dec 7, 1941, had a scheduled shelling of U.S. coastal cities on Christmas eve called off due to heavy patrols, and sank a freighter in the Strait of Juan de Fuca.
 
  • #46
It seems kind of strange, with all the airplanes flying around everywhere, everyday, why is this phenomenon not witnessed a lot more often?
 
  • #47
leroyjenkens said:
It seems kind of strange, with all the airplanes flying around everywhere, everyday, why is this phenomenon not witnessed a lot more often?

Slow news days becoming rarer, maybe?
 
  • #48
leroyjenkens said:
It seems kind of strange, with all the airplanes flying around everywhere, everyday, why is this phenomenon not witnessed a lot more often?

Atmospheric conditions?
 
  • #49
lisab said:
...but no source is given for the physicists. Could they be referencing this thread, I wonder :biggrin:?

If that's the case, then I'm available for immediate hire by the Pentagon at the GS-13 level! Lol...

Topher925 said:
I'm a little confused here. Did people actually see this missiles being launched...

No.

...or did people just suddenly look and see a big contrail?

Yes.

I was under the impression that people witness an actual object that resembled the shape of a missile traveling through the sky.

That's the impression the media is hoping to achieve when they release headlines containing misleading words "missle launch" and incorporate ficticious details like "35 miles off the coast."
 
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  • #50
Janus said:
The Japanese had dispatched two subs, the I-25 and I-26 to the U.S. west coast.

The incendiary bombs(the sub carried a disassembled float plane in a waterproof "hanger".), Oregon coast ships and Fort Stevens attack were all due to one submarine, the I-25.


The I-26 sank a lumber ship off the coast of California on Dec 7, 1941, had a scheduled shelling of U.S. coastal cities on Christmas eve called off due to heavy patrols, and sank a freighter in the Strait of Juan de Fuca.

A strange addendum to history: The events in Los Angeles and Long Beach, on the night following the shelling of Santa Barbara
http://mfile.akamai.com/5022/wma/coast.download.akamai.com/5022/clips/05/12/120705_cbs_news_ufo.asx

The link works but is slow to load. Be sure to listen to the entire report. By chance, my dad had moved to Long Beach from South Dakota, during the week of Dec 7th, 1941 [He was on a train when news of Pearl Harbor emerged]. This event took place the following February. He remembered the blackout, the artillary fire, and going out the next morning to collect ack-ack shells.
 
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  • #51
mugaliens said:
That's the impression the media is hoping to achieve when they release headlines containing misleading words "missle launch" and incorporate ficticious details like "35 miles off the coast."

I think you are being way too hard on the press here. It did look like a missile launch. It is easy to understand why people were fooled. And the 35 mile number no doubt comes from the distance to the horizon at elevation. The contrail seemed to originate from the ocean. Given that one could see it going all the way down to the water, but just barely, the implied distance to the launch point is about 35 miles.

When the Pentagon was asked, they shrugged and couldn't offer an explanation. Is it any wonder it became a story? The press would have been derelict in their duties to ignore it given no proper explanation. At first it was assumed to be a military test.
 
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  • #52
Ivan Seeking said:
I think you are being way too hard on the press here. It did look like a missile launch. It is easy to understand why people were fooled. And the 35 mile number no doubt comes from the distance to the horizon at elevation. The contrail seemed to originate from the ocean. Given that one could see it going all the way down to the water, but just barely, the implied distance to the launch point is about 35 miles.

When the Pentagon was asked, they shrugged and couldn't offer an explanation. Is it any wonder it became a story? The press would have been derelict in their duties to ignore it given no proper explanation. At first it was assumed to be a military test.

The press having a lack of information about something is a good reason for them to do a news story on it?

The only difference between this story and your typical UFO story is that at least the TV station could be sure it wasn't an intentional hoax. Seeing as how this contrail would only look like a missile launch from a specific angle, didn't the fact that no one else in the city noticed a missile in the sky make them wonder about what they saw?
 
  • #53
BobG said:
The press having a lack of information about something is a good reason for them to do a news story on it?

The only difference between this story and your typical UFO story is that at least the TV station could be sure it wasn't an intentional hoax. Seeing as how this contrail would only look like a missile launch from a specific angle, didn't the fact that no one else in the city noticed a missile in the sky make them wonder about what they saw?

I think you are all just hypernegative on the press, which is a popular fad these days. They were just doing their job.

Why would anyone in the city see a missile in the sky 35 miles out? Jeez!

I would add that within minutes of first report that I saw, they were running the claim that it might just be an optical illusion. Would you have them draw a conclusion with no facts? At first they thought it was a missile, and they almost immediately modified the claim when given new information.
 
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  • #54
Anyone watching CNN knew almost immediately that it might just be an illusion.
 
  • #55
I'm confused about the actual importance of this whole incident. So if it really was a plane and was proven, no one will care. If it was a missile shot by the US government then who really cares anyway? Don't they test missiles and other weapons routinely anyway? The only thing that would make this stand out is that the launch was not publicized beforehand. Other then that if it was terrorists or some other country they would obviously take credit for it.

I just don't understand how this so called "conspiracy" is even a conspiracy at all. If you look up the definition of conspiracy this incident does not have some kind of sinister master plan, it does not benefit anyone in any way.

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/conspiracy
 

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