Mystery Launch off California

[Maker]

US Air flight 808 from Hawaii to AZ

Bingo!

[g0_command0]

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

BAM

[Darius at home]

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

BAM

Reading the posts that various people have made below the (I think) well argued contrail hypothesis just serves to reinforce the my opinion that there is a vast reserve of ignorance and stupidity out there just waiting to be posted on the internet - except on modelling forums of course.

:)

Darius

[Melbatoast]

Um...nothing to see here:

http://www.nga.mil/MSISiteContent/StaticFi.../warn/dm_p.html

NAVAREA XII 453/2010(18).

EASTERN NORTH PACIFIC.

CALIFORNIA.

MISSILES.

1. INTERMITTENT MISSILE FIRING OPERATIONS 0001Z TO 2359Z

DAILY MONDAY THRU SUNDAY IN THE NAVAL AIR WARFARE CENTER

SEA RANGE. THE MAJORITY OF MISSILE FIRINGS TAKE PLACE

1400Z TO 2359Z AND 0001Z TO 0200Z DAILY MONDAY THRU FRIDAY

IN AREA BOUND BY

34-02N 119-04W, 33-52N 119-06W, 33-29N 118-37W,

33-20N 118-37W, 32-11N 120-16W, 31-54N 121-35W,

35-09N 123-39W, 35-29N 123-00W, 35-57N 121-32W,

34-04N 119-04W.

2. VESSELS MAY BE REQUESTED TO ALTER COURSE WITHIN THE ABOVE

AREA DUE TO FIRING OPERATIONS AND ARE REQUESTED TO CONTACT

PLEAD CONTROL ON 5081.5 MHZ (5080 KHZ) OR 3238.5 KHZ (3237 KHZ)

SECONDARY OR 156.8 MHZ (CH 16) OR 127.55 MHZ BEFORE ENTERING

THE ABOVE BOUNDARIES AND MAINTAIN CONTINUOUS GUARD WHILE

WITHIN THE RANGE.

3. VESSELS INBOUND AND OUTBOUND FOR SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA PORTS

WILL CREATE THE LEAST INTERFERENCE TO FIRING OPERATIONS

DURING THE SPECIFIC PERIODS, AS WELL AS ENHANCE THE VESSEL'S

SAFETY WHEN PASSING THROUGH THE VICINITY OF THE SEA RANGE

IF THEY WILL TRANSIT VIA THE SANTA BARBARA CHANNEL AND WITHIN

NINE MILES OFFSHORE VICINITY OF POINT MUGU OR CROSS THE AREA

SOUTHWEST OF SAN NICOLAS ISLAND BETWEEN SUNSET AND SUNRISE.

4. CANCEL NAVAREA XII 444/10.

[jwest21]

If you watched the contrail and it was a Phoenix bound plane, wouldn't the contrail have continued and finally went overhead? Not that I am buying into the missile theory- just wondering

[chukw]

Driving in to work this morning I saw three contrails going north to south alomg the coast, spaced closely abeam. Combing the area? On readiness patrol? Not something you see everyday.

[johnny_7713]

Not necessarily. Contrail formation and persistence is influenced by the ambient air conditions. Since those conditions are not the same everywhere, the plane could stop producing a contrail after a certain point (e.g. because it entered an area with lower humidity). Another posibility is that the plane started its descent and thus encountered different ambient air conditions.

EDIT: For a better explanation see here

Edited November 10, 2010 by johnny_7713

[jwest21]

Not necessarily. Contrail formation and persistence is influenced by the ambient air conditions. Since those conditions are not the same everywhere, the plane could stop producing a contrail after a certain point (e.g. because it entered an area with lower humidity). Another posibility is that the plane started its descent and thus encountered different ambient air conditions.

ah. OK..thanks!

[Electra II]

If you watched the contrail and it was a Phoenix bound plane, wouldn't the contrail have continued and finally went overhead? Not that I am buying into the missile theory- just wondering

Yep. Has anyone noticed that there has not been much follow-up conversation with the pilot who shot the original video? A pertinent follow-up question might have been: "Did you continue to observe the "object" until it disappeared from view? Or did you just shut off your camera once you determined you had captured enough footage (that looked like a missile shot) to make an interesting addition to the news?"

"If you did observe the object until it disappeared from view, what path did it take relative to your vantage point?"

Answer (speculating now): "Um, it flew roughly overhead in an easterly direction until it disappeared in the eastern darkness above the horizon."

If he had given such an answer to such a question, there would have been no story on Wednesday morning.

Cheers, Mitch

[HOLMES]

Try this link, Holmes ...

>>> Article <<<

HTH ... :)

Gregg

ah that is much better, thankk you...

[fulcrum1]

Boooo, I knew there was a snoozer reason behind it. I was kinda of hoping for an oversized private/amatuer rocket launched from the a ship....oh well.

[flyfort17]

Boooo, I knew there was a snoozer reason behind it. I was kinda of hoping for an oversized private/amatuer rocket launched from the a ship....oh well.

Ship? Na couldn't be

[Wayne S]

If you watched the contrail and it was a Phoenix bound plane, wouldn't the contrail have continued and finally went overhead? Not that I am buying into the missile theory- just wondering

Pretty sure he stopped filming soon as he either knew it was a plane or the helicopter he was in left the area/ direction.

[ALF18]

Oh my... looks nothing else like an approaching airliner to me, trailing a large contrail, which is getting displaced by different high altitude winds at the more distant parts. If this was anything going up, the trail would not have the same red sunset glow color from "bottom to the top".

Very good observation and logic! I'm not surprised it was you that figured this out... Smart analysis of the lighting conditions. I had a hard time figuring it out because that silly black text box at the bottom of the screen robbed me of perspective, and the camera didn't show any other ways of figuring out the trajectory.

ALF

[loupgarous]

Has anyone seen this? Has it been discovered what it was ?

http://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/bestoftv/...unch.cnn?hpt=C2

DaveT

I'm giving my age away (53) in recognizing the contrail as typical of some of the early rocket propellant combinations the US Armed Forces tried, such as various fuels with red fuming nitric acid (RFNA) as an oxidizer. If I recall correctly. some other oxidizer/propellant combos may also have had characteristic red smoke trails.

This raises the possibility of a wannabe nuclear power which isn't capable of fabricating or making some of the solid perchlorate-based propellants that we and the other "first-line" nuclear powers use in our current model ICBMs using RFNA and a suitable fuel instead because of its energy content.

North Korea and Iran seem to take quite a lot of pleasure in pantsing the Obama administration publicly (as with the 4.6 Richter scale "nonevent" in northwest Iran on the very day when Iran's leader said something would happen that would "shake the West" - the same magnitude tremor that followed Pakistani and Indian nuclear tests); this could be another example of "look what we could do if we really wanted to."

Edited November 11, 2010 by loupgarous

[evilmedic13]

Ummmmm, yeah. Please do go on Who opened the doors? A few have escaped.

[loupgarous]

I'm giving my age away (53) in recognizing the contrail as typical of some of the early rocket propellant combinations the US Armed Forces tried, such as various fuels with red fuming nitric acid (RFNA) as an oxidizer. If I recall correctly. some other oxidizer/propellant combos may also have had characteristic red smoke trails.

This raises the possibility of a wannabe nuclear power which isn't capable of fabricating or making some of the solid perchlorate-based propellants that we and the other "first-line" nuclear powers use in our current model ICBMs using RFNA and a suitable fuel instead because of its energy content.

North Korea and Iran seem to take quite a lot of pleasure in pantsing the Obama administration publicly (as with the 4.6 Richter scale "nonevent" in northwest Iran on the very day when Iran's leader said something would happen that would "shake the West" - the same magnitude tremor that followed Pakistani and Indian nuclear tests); this could be another example of "look what we could do if we really wanted to."

On the other hand, Jeffrey Lewis, who is generally respected as a kibitzer in arms control has covered the story in his "Arms Control Wonk" blog,

"It Ain't No Thing," Jeffrey Lewis, "ArmsControlWonk.Com" , is convinced that the image is a contrail from scheduled airline flight AmericaWest 808, based on timing, location, and the theory that some airliner contrails look like missile plumes owing to perspective and lighting.

Cool beans. I'm just as open to the simplest explanation consistent with the evidence being the "answer" as anyone. My only issue is both sides of the controversy ("Airliner contrail" versus "something more sinister") are waving their hands an awful lot and producing comparatively little hard data, That includes me, I'm sorry to say.

I just figured, from the footage I saw, that John Pike/Ivan Oelrich's "optical illusion" theory didn't convince me as much as I'd have liked, and other friends who've seen the footage, including a former Naval Intelligence analyst, are also unconvinced as to the validity of any of the theories out there. More data! We need more data!

But I'm increasingly inclined to accept the "optical illusion" data in that there are more data in evidence to support it than alternative theories.

The odd incident of the 4.6 Richter quake in northwest Iran on the day that Shiny Blazer Man Running Iran seemed to be obliquely announcing a nuclear test has STILL yet to be adequately explained (or even covered in the press outside of a US Geological Survey press release and some analysis in the Jerusalem Post).

Edited November 11, 2010 by loupgarous

[johnny_7713]

I'm giving my age away (53) in recognizing the contrail as typical of some of the early rocket propellant combinations the US Armed Forces tried, such as various fuels with red fuming nitric acid (RFNA) as an oxidizer. If I recall correctly. some other oxidizer/propellant combos may also have had characteristic red smoke trails.

This raises the possibility of a wannabe nuclear power which isn't capable of fabricating or making some of the solid perchlorate-based propellants that we and the other "first-line" nuclear powers use in our current model ICBMs using RFNA and a suitable fuel instead because of its energy content.

North Korea and Iran seem to take quite a lot of pleasure in pantsing the Obama administration publicly (as with the 4.6 Richter scale "nonevent" in northwest Iran on the very day when Iran's leader said something would happen that would "shake the West" - the same magnitude tremor that followed Pakistani and Indian nuclear tests); this could be another example of "look what we could do if we really wanted to."

Did you notice the clouds surrounding the contrail had the same colour? The characteristic colour of clouds being illuminated by the setting sun?

Regarding the Iran event I hadn't heard of it before, but I'd like to point out that in Iran earthquakes are pretty common and Ahmadinejad makes a reference to 'shaking the West' or similar propaganda speak just about every other speech. Its hardly surprising that one of those speeches would coincide with an earthquake the next day.

On the other hand, Jeffrey Lewis, who is generally respected as a kibitzer in arms control has covered the story in his "Arms Control Wonk" blog,

"It Ain't No Thing," Jeffrey Lewis, "ArmsControlWonk.Com" , is convinced that the image is a contrail from scheduled airline flight AmericaWest 808, based on timing, location, and the theory that some airliner contrails look like missile plumes owing to perspective and lighting.

Cool beans. I'm just as open to the simplest explanation consistent with the evidence being the "answer" as anyone. My only issue is both sides of the controversy ("Airliner contrail" versus "something more sinister") are waving their hands an awful lot and producing comparatively little hard data, That includes me, I'm sorry to say.

I just figured, from the footage I saw, that John Pike/Ivan Oelrich's "optical illusion" theory didn't convince me as much as I'd have liked, and other friends who've seen the footage, including a former Naval Intelligence analyst, are also unconvinced as to the validity of any of the theories out there. More data! We need more data!

But I'm increasingly inclined to accept the "optical illusion" data in that there are more data in evidence to support it than alternative theories.

The odd incident of the 4.6 Richter quake in northwest Iran on the day that Shiny Blazer Man Running Iran seemed to be obliquely announcing a nuclear test has STILL yet to be adequately explained (or even covered in the press outside of a US Geological Survey press release and some analysis in the Jerusalem Post).

The data available:

- The US military did not issue a missile launch warning, like they would do for a routine, non-wartime launch

- The FAA did not give out any commercial launch licences

- No airliner crew reported seeing anything odd, this during peak time at LAX

- No-one who saw the contrail from a different angle identified it as a missile launch

- The contrail is not inconsistent with the contrails produced by commercial airliners, especially considering the vantage point of the helicopter

- US Airways flight 808 was in the correct position, at the correct time, to produce the contrail

- When US Airways flight 808 passed the same location again the next day it produced a very similar contrail.

For more information see:

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

http://blog.bahneman.com/content/it-was-us...ways-flight-808

[Darius at home]

Did you notice the clouds surrounding the contrail had the same colour? The characteristic colour of clouds being illuminated by the setting sun?

Regarding the Iran event I hadn't heard of it before, but I'd like to point out that in Iran earthquakes are pretty common and Ahmadinejad makes a reference to 'shaking the West' or similar propaganda speak just about every other speech. Its hardly surprising that one of those speeches would coincide with an earthquake the next day.

The data available:

- The US military did not issue a missile launch warning, like they would do for a routine, non-wartime launch

- The FAA did not give out any commercial launch licences

- No airliner crew reported seeing anything odd, this during peak time at LAX

- No-one who saw the contrail from a different angle identified it as a missile launch

- The contrail is not inconsistent with the contrails produced by commercial airliners, especially considering the vantage point of the helicopter

- US Airways flight 808 was in the correct position, at the correct time, to produce the contrail

- When US Airways flight 808 passed the same location again the next day it produced a very similar contrail.

I suspect that using facts and common sense is going to get you nowhere in persuading those with hats lined with silver foil that you are right...

Darius

[zerosystem]

I suspect that using facts and common sense is going to get you nowhere in persuading those with hats lined with silver foil that you are right...

Darius

bringing facts to a gunfight? :wub:

[richter111]

Never get into a battle of wits with someone who is half loaded.

[jester292]

More evidence that the general population should gather information from more sources than primary media outlets. Not only are they sharing "stories" which they feel we "need" to know (What has Charlie Sheen done today?), but the "inforomation" they share is vague at best (another "scientific study is clinically proven" without details of the research, other than it was completed yesterday).

Relying on Brian Williams or Katie Couric to tell me the "world news" (which usually includes some poor family's hardships here in America) is hardly educating yourself on current world events.

Unfortunately the more lazy we become, the more likely we are to accept what is spoon fed to us every day. News programs broadcast news the same way MTV shows music videos and the History Channel runs history programs.

Aaron

Edited November 12, 2010 by jester292

[DutyCat]

Has anyone seen this? Has it been discovered what it was ?

http://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/bestoftv/...unch.cnn?hpt=C2

DaveT

Just watched this and looked at it carefully. I wonder if there is more footage?

In my opinion, it is not a contrail from a airliner. It looks more like a rocket launch, comparable to what one would see from a shuttle. One indicator is the instability of the plume as it rises through air currents of different velocity. Just my opinion.

[caudleryan]

At the very end of that yahoo video, does that look like flames from a rocket engine? When it comes to this kind of stuff,

I'm not very good at it.

RYAN.

[johnny_7713]

At the very end of that yahoo video, does that look like flames from a rocket engine? When it comes to this kind of stuff,

I'm not very good at it.

RYAN.

It does vaguely look like flames from a rocket engine. On the other hand, it also looks like sunlight reflecting of an airplane. Given those two possibilities, and all the other evidence presented I'd say that airplane is more likely. Also if you look for missile launch videos on youtube (there's some pretty cool videos in there) or look at say this video

of the space shuttle being lauched, you'll notice that the rocket exhaust is more or less contant, while 'mystery contrail' flickers.