Norad confirms 'no threat to our nation', after video shows vapour trail, resembling that created by a rocket, off California

This article is more than 9 years old

This article is more than 9 years old

The US defence department said it did not know what created a vapour trail that crossed the skies off the Californian coast and resembled a missile launch.

Video posted on the CBS News website shows an object flying through the sky on Monday that left a large condensation trail ('contrail'). A helicopter owned by a CBS affiliate in Los Angeles shot the video.

Pentagon officials were stumped by the event. "Nobody within the department of defence that we've reached out to has been able to explain what this contrail is, where it came from," a Pentagon spokesman, Colonel Dave Lapan, said.

While the vapour trail captured on video resembled that created by a rocket in flight, military officials said they knew of no launches in the area.

Lapan said that all indications were that the defence department was not involved with the object.

One expert called it an optical illusion. "It's an aeroplane that is heading toward the camera and the contrail is illuminated by the setting sun," said John Pike, director of the US-based security analyst group globalsecurity.org.

The North American Aerospace Defence Command, or Norad, issued a statement jointly with the Northern Command, or Northcom, saying that the contrail was not the result of a foreign military launching a missile. It provided no details.

"We can confirm that there is no threat to our nation," the statement said. "We will provide more information as it becomes available."

Northcom is the US defence command and Norad is a US-Canadian organisation charged with protecting North America from the threat of missiles or hostile aircraft.

Pike said the object could not have been a rocket because it appeared to alter its course.

"The local station chopped up the video and so it's hard to watch it continuously," Pike said. "But at one place you can see it has changed course; rockets don't do that."

Pike said he did not understand why the military had not recognised the contrail of an aircraft. "The air force must ... understand how contrails are formed," he said. "Why they can't get some major out to belabour the obvious, I don't know."