What do you guys think this thing was:



Some experts say it was most likely a solid fuelled rocket/missle of some sort.

Others say it's just the trail from a jet airliner. This guy even tracked it down to a specific flight, and that there was a similar trail the next day when that flight happened again:
http://blog.bahneman.com/content/it-was-us-airways-flight-808
-US Airways flight 808

Some say it was just too slow to be a missile… and the American military denies it had anything to do with it.
I'm not sure myself. From personal experience I know the Australian military flat out deny and lie all the time about obvious stuff you've seen with your own eyes and heard with your own ears- particularly in the vicinity of the S.A.S.R base not far from me.
As for the speed; from extreme long distance like in the vid, rockets do appear to move that slowly.

Then there's the shape… it forms in what seems to be one large corkscrew spiral. All jet contrails I've ever seen have two smaller spirals- because that's how the vortices form when they come off the wings, and they're symmetrical; one goes one way and the other mirrors it.

So what could it be? I'm not sure myself.

Submarine launched missiles make this sort of spectacle… http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wlp1lUWqRYI&feature=related

Aeroplanes like this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iv_hzZe0QpA

I heard about this, it's curious. What is that bright spot in the video? Surely a plane wouldn't make a bright spot like that. I dunno anything about contrails, but if that were a frequent occurence someone would have noticed it before now. I didn't think jetliners left contrails quite so puffy anyway, usually they're more like two streaks?

Space is getting more and more accessible to people though. It's possible it was an amateur rocket or something. You're meant to get clearance before shooting those off, but maybe the guy didn't know, or is a dumbass. :] And once set off I doubt anyone would own up to it.

Someone
I respect that people will see what they want to see, particularly when it lines up with their interest. Military missile men will see a missile. Conspiracy fans will see a conspiracy. Military pilots will see an fighter jet. Myself? I'm an aviation photographer who also dabbles in weather and atmospheric phenomena. So I see a commercial airliner and its contrail, however, I also believe that this is an excellent example of Occam's Razor: “the simplest explanation is more likely the correct one.”

That about sums it up and he has all the evidence to back it up. He even repeated the experiment to further prove the point. That meets all the criterea for scientific proof. He's also an experienced observer who knows what he's looking at as opposed to the contrail/chemtrail types in the second youtube video. :)

And oz you only posted the link to the first youtube video because it has ABBA as the soundtrack. ;)

But just because it really really looks like a missile doesn't mean that it is. Here we are with another mundane explanation ignored because we all want something exiciting to believe in.

well ive never EVER seen a commercial airliner do that. i think it looks more like a missile or rocket for pretty much the same points skool made. no reason to say its from outer space or anything. fuck aliens. their bastards. assholes hang around the atmosphere, but are too good to come down and say hello to anyone except to give em an anal probe. fuck you!

I have first hand information that the one responsible was Batman:

@God_Damn_Batman
Not saying I had anything to do with that missile off the coast of CA. But I hope the vacuum of space is cold enough for you, Mr. Freeze

pit face
their bastards. assholes hang around the atmosphere, but are too good to come down and say hello to anyone except to give em an anal probe. fuck you!

Sounds like my first date.

Kinda reminds me of the contrails of old surface to air missiles in shape, but I don't think those make that much of a contrail. It would be kind of self-defeating if they did.

I would not be surprised if some model rocket nut made himself a giant model and launched it off. Those use solid-state rocket motors, and back when I lived in on the plains, there were some hobby groups that used to shoot the things off and sometimes made some really big ones where they'd have to notify the local airport of what they were up to, lest they accidentally bring down someone's plane coming in for a landing.

I doubt it's much of anything to be worried about though. If it were one of the old anti-nuclear or SAM bases around San Francisco or something like that, the news would have gotten wind of it and freaked out by now.

I'm curious, but I couldn't say what it is. The picture doesn't show more than smoke and the burner, for the most part. Looks kinda like a missile, but I'm no expert. My thinking is: if it is a missile, couldn't NORAD or whoever's running a tracking satellite/radar in those parts get a feel for a landing position or point of origin? Or did this thing run blind somehow? It looked like another plane was in the video, what about an intercept run from a local base?

Regardless of what it was, I have a hard time accepting we have anything more than the public version of the story. The US takes its airspace pretty seriously from everything I've seen in the past (heck, remember the Air Force 1 debacle by the Statue of Liberty?) so someone probably knows. Might be a matter of saving face through feigned ignorance.

Edit: They're saying its a jet now and the viewpoint is just an odd vantage point combined with an optical illusion.

That's a missile, commercial aircraft don't swing around like that, and the trail's too ragged too close to the source for it to be an airplane. If it is, the pilot is either a drunk or an idiot (specially if it's supposed to be a stealth plane, or something just as secretive)

bravo1102
But just because it really really looks like a missile doesn't mean that it is. Here we are with another mundane explanation ignored because we all want something exiciting to believe in.

The problem in this case was that there were many real experts advocating both positions and neither explanation is ostensibly more mundane or simple.

Rockets and missiles are a little rarer, but hardly extraordinary. And the explanation required to fit the event to an aeroplane was actually more complicated than to fit it to a missile or rocket so “simple is best” and “occam's razor” are misapplied here. The only thing really favouring aeroplanes is the greater frequency of air flight in the region.

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It was an interesting event and one that had everyone in a tizzy.
I still remain not entirely convinced by the aeroplane explanation though due to the shape of the contrail (single corkscrew, veering widely) and the fact that it took officials so long to place it when all airline flights are plotted exactly (in time and space)- they should've been able to come back straight away and say which plane was the likely culprit. Leaves room for doubt.

hey ozone, speaking of arashi (you asked in the rant thread)

we spoke on facebook the other night, and he mentioned seeing several blue flashes across the skies of cali.
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I'm no expert in faked youtube videos, so i don't know what it is.

Rogue missile lighting up the sky in early November? It's obviously a Brit celebrating Bonfire Night in the traditional way …

There's a reason those fireworks have safety warnings on them!

seventy2
hey ozone, speaking of arashi (you asked in the rant thread)

Tell him to come back ^^

North Korean Missile?

http://www.helium.com/items/2007974-west-coast-mystery-missile-may-be-north-korean

If it indeed is North Korean, the question is… WHO ARMED North Korea?

It is known in the past that Rumsfeld sent nuclear reactors to North Korea. This is mainstream news.
http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/fortune_archive/2003/05/12/342316/index.htm

The nuke reactors are publicly known. But God knows what else they sent to North Korea.

How can North Korea develop such a missile when majority of their people have to make do with eating rats (if they're lucky)? Who keeps on sending aid to this “communist” (in quotation because even other communists think that North Korea is NOT communist) failed state? Let them collapse so liberty may rise over there in the end.

But then again… that's not part of the agenda. Having a Soviet-era relic state to menace the American people (and the Western world and other allies in general… North Korea also threatens Japan and South Korea… Philippines may be dragged into this in the event of a war) is part of the plan to justify the existence of a police state.

kyupol
North Korean Missile?

No.

kyupol
North Korean Missile?

Unless North Korea is the missile, then no. As far as I'm aware, NK doesn't have any boomers, so that rules them out. North Korea is simply too far away for a missile trail to be visible. The more likely explination is that the US is testing a new system and someone was being rather stupid with the timing.

The USA takes its airspace seriously. The USA doesn't want its military to look like a bunch of idiots who can't protect the homeland from Mr. Freeze. ;)

And it takes time to trace back a contrail to known airlanes. Without precise radar tracking information it's not one-two-three. It takes a couple of days for civilian analysts to confirm these things. It's not “OHMIGAWD INCOMING BOGIES! CONFIRM IFF” No one was looking for it or at it when it happened.

After reading those Thriller books it takes time to review radar tapes and satillite images to confirm what something was. In this world of instant gratification it's hard for us to imagine that a lot of real-time intelligence isn't as “real-time” as we've been led to believe when it pops up where someone wasn't looking for it.

I kind of like the idea tht it was some model-rocket enthusiast. Considering a local scrap yard had a Laccrosse missile shell (found downrange either in Fort Dix or Sandy Hook. Missile ranges in over populated NJ? Yep) and surmised not a whole lot of propellent would have been necessary to send that up in a brilliant display of pyrotechnics…

I also know a guy who has the shell of a Sparrow missile sitting in his basement. And he had figured out what it would take to send it up…

i hope it was the mythbusters, cause that's gonna be an -awesome- episode.

i suspect it was just a plane with interesting hi-altitude weather patterns and such that particular day. though a private or military rocket theory is fine with me too. i've got way more to worry over than someone shooting missiles at my house… city… general geographic location…

i was looking up the battle of la (1942) earlier today… military called that one a weather balloon, though a lot of folk speculate that they made the claim so as not to alarm the public to the fact that they weren't equipped to deal with an actual u.f.o. (of the military variety, NOT the alien type, it was ww2 after all) the logistics of actually controlling airspace is mind boggling to my mind, things are bound to slip up. but it makes sense not to give potential threats the idea that our military can't handle it, specially if it's something silly like a backyard rocket.

kalliikak
i hope it was the mythbusters, cause that's gonna be an -awesome- episode.

YES.