Mystery Missile Launch in California

AI Thread Summary
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.
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The Pentagon says it's trying to figure out whether a missile was launched off the coast of southern California and who might have launched it.

Officials with the navy, air force, Defence Department and North American Aerospace Defence Command say they are looking into a video posted on the website of Southern California television station KFMB.

The video appears to show a rocket or some other object shooting up into the sky and leaving a large contrail over the Pacific Ocean...
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/world/americas/pentagon-stumped-by-apparent-missile-launch-off-us-coast/article1791785/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CeXNC8k9FKU
 
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Physics news on Phys.org
OK, who shot off their latest science project?
 
Where did it land? Did it land?
 
At least one national security expert thinks its just an unusually distinct contrail from an aircraft. If it was approaching the camera from the horizon, it would appear to be rising.
 
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Tsu asked a pretty obvious question that I've heard no one address yet: Didn't someone track this thing on RADAR?

Likewise, if it was just an aircraft, it should be possible to correlate the sighting with aircraft RADAR data.
 
Maybe it was someone blowing off his top in a delayed reaction to last week's election.
 
lol @Topher925 I laugher at your comment. Nice one.
 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ysTDh6R9N8E

They say previous launch was for Skynet(1:08). And you still wonder who launched it. Never watched "Terminator"?

:devil::-p
 
  • #10
I admit when I first heard the "jet contrail" theory, I thought there was no way that could be a contrail. I've got to admit it's becoming by far the most plausible theory, to me. And the other options are way crazier, I think.

It also explains why Air Traffic Control and NORAD didn't see anything out of the ordinary. All they would see at the time would be a perfectly normal airplane.

Rather than go over all the points, here's an article that explains it: http://www.examiner.com/weather-in-los-angeles/missile-launch-over-southern-california-explained

You know, the "funny" thing is that, if it really is a jet contrail, many, many people won't believe it and will assume a conspiracy. I mean, let's face it, it really does look like a missile at first glance. Even that red "glow" that's likely just the sun looked rather like exhaust plasma to me. Mark my words, this one will not die off quickly! LOL
 
  • #11
"camwyatt What's more chilling...? That they don't know what this was (or) that it has taken over 18 hours to tell us they don't know yet. Not feeling my defense shield right now."
4 hours ago
CNN comments
http://www.cnn.com/2010/US/11/09/california.contrails/index.html?hpt=C1
My emotion thingies are not working and I can not get that laughing guy! :cry:
 
  • #12
I've seen at least a dozen launches and that looks like a launch to me. Here's a Titan for example:

You can see the contrail stays together which is typical. Also, it seems to go up very slowly because the camera is so far away. Note the contrail isn't straight up, it bends over about a minute into a launch, which is typical.

If the thing is a missile though, then assuming the picture was taken from near LA and the launch begins where it says it does, it seems to be going north or north west because it's going to the right in the film. Could even be going due west, but if it's going north at all, it may end up over land, which would rule out any kind of government launch. Even some secret government agency wouldn't launch a missile such that it travels over a populated area.
 
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  • #13
cshum00 said:
lol @Topher925 I laugher at your comment. Nice one.

That comment was meant to be a joke but I seriously do think this was just someone's science/hobby project. People are getting very smart these days. There are a lot of hobbyists that like to build and fly their own UAVs, high altitude balloons, and yes, even make their own rockets and missiles. I think this was probably just an unapproved AMA test launch by a couple of hobby level rocket scientists.
 
  • #14
I wonder if the helicopter attempted to follow the trail back to the lauch site, or did they just follow it up into the sky, then go on to cover traffic.
 
  • #15
Upisoft said:
They say previous launch was for Skynet(1:08). And you still wonder who launched it. Never watched "Terminator"?

:devil::-p

no chance it could be an asian nation showing us what they can do?
 
  • #16
Astronuc said:
I wonder if the helicopter attempted to follow the trail back to the lauch site, or did they just follow it up into the sky, then go on to cover traffic.

That should be part of the job description. "If you see a mysterious plume of smoke, go hover above where it originated". :biggrin:
 
  • #17
Proton Soup said:
no chance it could be an asian nation showing us what they can do?

To the best of my knowledge, there are no Asian nations in Southern California. :biggrin:
 
  • #18
Ivan Seeking said:
To the best of my knowledge, there are no Asian nations in Southern California. :biggrin:

yeah, but they do have submarines
 
  • #19
Ivan Seeking said:
To the best of my knowledge, there are no Asian nations in Southern California. :biggrin:

:smile:
 
  • #20
Proton Soup said:
yeah, but they do have submarines

Ah, good point. :smile:

Trivia: Did you know that the Japanese once shelled Santa Barbara?
 
  • #21
Ivan Seeking said:
Ah, good point. :smile:

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

DAMN! That's a long way from Pearl Harbor.
 
  • #22
If you're not yet convinced it could be a jet contrail, check this page out:

http://uncinus.wordpress.com/2010/11/09/4/

Perhaps it could really be a missile. But really, after reading that page, what do you think is really most likely?

Quite the convincing optical illusion though! But if I had any money, I'd bet it on the jet contrail theory.
 
  • #23
SUNSET CONTRAIL in California

Ivan Seeking said:
At least one national security expert thinks its just an unusually distinct contrail from an aircraft.

This is an appeal to authority. A former secretary of defense is primarily in management, not science and technology, even though they may have previously had a background in the latter.

Having flown for the U.S. Air Force for several thousand hours, I've seen contrails exactly like this dozens of times, similar ones hundreds of times. I've seen many contrails, thousands, perhaps tens of thousands of times.

This is a contrail, illuminated after sunset such that it appears reddish orange, caused by a high-altitude jetliner flying towards, and slightly to the right of the camera from over the horizon.

Calling it a "missile" launch is poor journalism at best, and over-sensationalistic at worst.

Grep said:
If you're not yet convinced it could be a jet contrail, check this page out:

http://uncinus.wordpress.com/2010/11/09/4/

...

Quite the convincing optical illusion though! But if I had any money, I'd bet it on the jet contrail theory.

As would I. Great link, Grep! The nearly identical picture really brings this issue home. Now if we could just get the media to visit PF once in a while, it might help keep them from flying off the deep end.
 
  • #24


mugaliens said:
This is an appeal to authority. A former secretary of defense is primarily in management, not science and technology, even though they may have previously had a background in the latter.

I didn't say he was the Secretary of Defense, and it wasn't an appeal to authority [learn your definitions and read what I post before throwing around accusations]. In fact, you have no idea who he was, and I was just repeating the statement made - one that you agree with in the next paragraph.
 
  • #25


Ivan Seeking said:
I didn't say he was the Secretary of Defense

The only "national security expert" that's I've seen in the news over this was http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ysTDh6R9N8E&feature=player_embedded#!".

...it wasn't an appeal to authority...

It most certainly was, particularly if you declined to name the individual.

Which brings up the next obvious question: "Just who is your 'national security expert'?"

Regardless, http://uncinus.wordpress.com/2010/11/09/4/" .
 
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  • #26
Having flown for the U.S. Air Force for several thousand hours, I've seen contrails exactly like this dozens of times, similar ones hundreds of times. I've seen many contrails, thousands, perhaps tens of thousands of times.

This is a contrail, illuminated after sunset such that it appears reddish orange, caused by a high-altitude jetliner flying towards, and slightly to the right of the camera from over the horizon.

Calling it a "missile" launch is poor journalism at best, and over-sensationalistic at worst.
Why is this one getting so much attention? Shouldn't this be a common sight if it's what you say it is?
 
  • #27
Lacy33 said:
DAMN! That's a long way from Pearl Harbor.


It was his first day on the job, and one island looks pretty much like any other, and the pacific ocean is really big.
 
  • #28
Lacy33 said:
DAMN! That's a long way from Pearl Harbor.


They also shelled Fort Stevens (one of the gun implacements guarding the mouth of the Columbia river), sank two ships off the Oregon coast and dropped incendiary bombs in Southern Oregon (in an attempt to start forest fires).
 
  • #29
Janus said:
They also shelled Fort Stevens (one of the gun implacements guarding the mouth of the Columbia river), sank two ships off the Oregon coast and dropped incendiary bombs in Southern Oregon (in an attempt to start forest fires).

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!
 
  • #30
It could be a contrail, but I have never seen one that wasn't split at its source. What was seen on radar?
 
  • #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
 
  • #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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