Mystery Missile Launch

| November 9, 2010

This seems a bit odd…

(CBS) A mysterious missile launch off the southern California coast was caught by CBS affiliate KCBS’s cameras Monday night, and officials are staying tight-lipped over the nature of the projectile.

The Air Force and Navy are claiming it wasn’t them…

A Navy spokesperson told KFMB it wasn’t their missile. He said there was no Navy activity reported in the area Monday evening.

On Friday night, Vandenberg Air Force Base, in California, launched a Delta II rocket, carrying an Italian satellite into orbit, but a sergeant at the base told KFMB there had been no launches since then

Robert Ellsworth, former NATO embassador and former Deputy Sec. Def. took a guess.

When asked, however, what he thought it might be, the former ambassador said it could possibly have been a missile test timed as a demonstration of American military might as President Obama tours Asia

Personally, I don’t know why this administration would want to flex any muscle while the POTUS is in India/Indonesia…anyone else have a good guess?

UPDATE: This guy has an interesting take, check out the photos…and it’s not from Monday night…
contrail

Category: Foreign Policy, Politics

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Michael in MI

Personally, I don’t know why this administration would want to flex any muscle while the POTUS is in India/Indonesia…anyone else have a good guess?
=====

Yeah, really, what was he doing, saber-rattling against the volcanoes there? Considering he thinks his very election into office stops the rise of the oceans, maybe he thinks launching missiles into the air stops the eruption of volcanoes.

Ringo the Gringo

It’s a bit more than odd.

Is it possible that the missile was not launched by us, but rather by another country as a warning?

Ringo the Gringo
PintoNag

There’s not enough to this story yet. The news media even put forth the idea that it might be a private rocket launch, science-project kind of thing. It appeared to launch from our coast, or near it, but nobody — military, private, or otherwise — has admitted to ownership.
This is one for the “wait-and-see” file.

streetsweeper

Along with #4, ….Not to mention the included “chem trail comment” plus more embedded in the re-recorded video. Guess they’ve never seen a rocket launch let alone video of a Sparrow or Phoenix missile being fired from a Navy fighter jet, LOL! Wait and see…..

PintoNag

And if you don’t think private citizenry is involved with rockets, think again! Go online and look at the NAR (the National Association of Rocketry). My guess at this point is that what was seen over CA was a rocket, not a missile.

Old Trooper

Over at the varsity club, B5, someone posted the NOTAMS for that area, so this was a planned launch. That everyone is denying any knowledge means it’s probably on a need to know basis and not for general public consumption.

David Wilson

Israeli sub testing for the benefit of the mullahs

Old Trooper

I retract my previous post since checking the NOTAMS myself and found that it is for later today into tomorrow, not yesterday. So, the guy posting about it didn’t actually read it to begin with.

PintoNag

Yes, Old Tanker, and if I understand it correctly, with any larger NAR rocket launch, it’s both planned and declared with local authorities, so that an “unidentified missile” sighting doesn’t scare the bejabbers out of everyone (and bring legal ramifications, as well).
My guess that it was a rocket rather than a missile leans more toward wishful thinking than fact. I’d rather we didn’t have rogue missiles being flung around right now…

hoosierbeagle

Thinking maybe it could be an ooopppsssss! Civilian rocketry for that altitude would have to be cleared wouldn’t it….DOD is confused, NORAA is confused….come on…not buying that. Just my opinion…

Laughing Wolf

Best explanation I’ve heard so far is that Biden could have sworn the button said “lunch”…

Minuteman26

How about one of our enemies demonstrating how close they can get without being detected. If that’s the case national security is at an all time low.

PintoNag

From CNN’s website comes this interesting excerpt:

‘”Why the government is so badly organized that they can’t get somebody out there to explain it (this sighting) and make this story go away…”‘

After that, I’m retracting my guess that this was just a rocket.

Michael in MI

Reminds me a little bit of the controversy over TWA Flight 800 back in 1996. There were people who swore they saw a missile fired at the plane and that the missile was the cause of the crash, but supposedly the government shut all those people up.

Rurik

Were there any tramp steamers in the area? A number of nations have been working on the technology for launching a ballistic missile/rocket from the lold of a cargo ship. Looking after all possibilites suggests we ought to consider that someone was trying to send a deliberately muddled, but threatening message without causing any lethal damage this time.

Old Trooper

This is a messed up thing. It seems no one knows what the fuck went on. Either they are telling the truth, or they don’t want to tell us and either scenario doesn’t leave me with a warm fuzzy.

What I mean is:

Either they are incompetent on national security, or they know about it and it was a breech of national security and they don’t want us to know they have no response.

Ben

I have been following this since last night, when my father told me he saw a “missile” as he was driving home from Northern California. I find it very odd that USNORTHCOM, USPACOM?, or any other Gov agencies have not issued a statement 24 hours after the fact. Also considering the timing, this is wierd: http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalpunch/2010/11/exclusive-officials-worried-president-obama-may-have-to-cancel-indonesia-trip-due-to-indonesian-volc.html Who knows. If he continues on to S Korea and Japan, its the volcano. If he returns CONUS then it says something else.

UpNorth

“Either they are incompetent on national security, or they know about it and it was a breech of national security and they don’t want us to know they have no response”. That would be a real possibility, Ben. The Annointed One has never expressed much interest in National Security, only National Giveaways.

streetsweeper

Just over the air, FOX is relaying the Pentagons saying it “might be a jet”. My arse!

WOTN Editor

Denials:
NORAD says its not a foreign threat.
Navy says its not theirs.

I followed the denials all day (both of them) which pretty much eliminate all possibilities of any missile being launched out of the sea, unless of course the US has some kind of new submarine missile capability that doesn’t belong to the Navy.

My bet is that the US Govt hopes we’ll forget about it before they run out of denials, regardless of which is the lie.

Whether it was some Ensign pushing buttons accidently or a foreign power showing off their new capabilities, it doesn’t bode well.
By now, the Navy has accounted for every missile in its inventory and Naval Officers with puckered bungholes are coming up with new SOP’s. (whether it was theirs or not)

But NORAD simply said we’re not threatened by a foreign power. The only way they could truthfully say that is if they knew who launched it and that the intention did not include more missiles aimed westward.

NHSparky

Minuteman–newsflash–back in the 70’s and 80’s the Soviets had AGI’s off all our major ports/facilities.

enoch

The US/Israel preemptive strike on Iran must be getting close. This is likely a shot across the bow by the Russians warning the USA off. There is no chance that the US administration would acknowledge such a warning shot. There is also a lack of recognition generally that Russia is Iran/Syria’s ace-in-the-hole against major US intervention in their plans for annihilating Israel. When that strike does happen, it will go nuclear both in the Middle East and on US coasts, plural.

NHSparky

Yo, enoch–how much tinfoil do you go through in an average week?

Robert Chiroux

It’s a missile folks. Notice the contrail shows clear indication of post launch navigation correction at about the right altitude. We got a warning shot over the bow and I would expect our government to explain it away and hope it goes away in the press. Behind the scenes, DEFCON just went up, and I have no idea why.

SSG Medzyk

It’s a plane. We see them all the time like this. Inbound from Asia or Hawaii.

As a witness to thousands of launches from Vandenberg AFB, this contrail does NOT follow the normal and predictable atmospheric parameters. As a rocket goes up, it passes through dozens of different wind patterns, disturbances, and pressure layers. This results in the smoke trail twisting into loops, pretzels, long curves, and various rainbows of colors as the vapor freezes at different altitudes.

This is nothing more than the contrail of a jet, the bright “flame” in the video is the sun reflecting off the belly of the aircraft, as the sun is visibly lower than it is.

No secrets, no conspiracy, no show of force to Asia(really? two atomic bombs weren’t convincing enough?). Just a bunch of tourists coming home.

Miss Ladybug

That last is pretty funny, considering the typos and strange word usage…

DaveO

Miss Ladybug,

It’s a spambot using English words to defeat the filter. Heh.

Miss Ladybug

Yeah, but I still think it’s funny that it’s complaining about poor spelling (not a big problem on this blog from the authors) and they’ve got crappy grammar and awkward word usage… 😛