Skunk Bay Missile Crisis: Image captured in Hansville sparks alt-right conspiracy theories

Nathan Pilling | Kitsap

This wasn’t the first time Greg Johnson’s cameras have captured a strange object streaking through the night near Whidbey Island. This time, though, was a bit different.

The Hansville man woke up Sunday morning to find an email from a National Weather Service observer who’d seen something strange on Johnson’s Skunk Bay Weather camera broadcast in the early morning hours.

His website’s array of web cameras point north from his Hansville home out over Skunk Bay toward Whidbey, typically capturing timelapses of beautiful sunsets, freighters churning in from the Strait of Juan de Fuca, and unique cloud formations. They stream to his website and Johnson posts unique images to social media for his fans to enjoy.

More: Hansville weather enthusiast shares his view of the sky with the world

His pictures and videos typically do well in those forums. But this night, while he was sleeping, Johnson’s camera captured what would become his most popular image yet.

The image sparked a wave of comments, questions and interest attached to a bizarre alt-right conspiracy theory that’s grown on internet discussion boards over the last few months.

The image

Johnson pulled up the picture: captured at 3:56 a.m., it showed a thin strip of Skunk Bay, a view of Whidbey Island, a sky full of dark clouds and a mysterious streak of light cutting across the left side of the picture, at one end disappearing into the clouds and at the other culminating near the edge of the picture at a grayish shape. The long-exposure image clearly showed something shooting across the frame, but what was it?

“To me, when I blew that thing up and saw what it looked like, I saw a missile launch,” Johnson said. “I was convinced.”

He shared the image with his friend, University of Washington weather professor Cliff Mass. On Monday, Mass kicked the news cycle into high gear with a blog post provocatively titled “Was there an unannounced missile launch on Whidbey Island early on Sunday morning?”

“Can you see the bright vertical streak on the left side of the figure? Note the illumination both inside and outside the cloud. It really looks like the ascent of a rocket,” Mass wrote in his post.

“My night camera picked up what clearly looks like a very large missile launch from Whidbey Island,” Johnson wrote in his initial social media post about the picture. “I really wanted more information before I shared this with the public.”

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Other news outlets began to pick up on the story, proclaiming the streak of light a “mysterious object over Whidbey Island.”

The British tabloid The Daily Mail on Tuesday proclaimed: “A secret missile launch? Mystery streak of light spotted over Whidbey Island leaves locals baffled,” citing an atmospheric expert who concluded that the light streak was moving horizontally and not vertically.

On Monday, a blog named The War Zone tackled the story and dove deep into the issue. In the story, its author Tyler Rogoway came to the conclusion that the streak was an Airlift Northwest ambulance helicopter that had been tracked flying directly over and away from Johnson’s camera.

“With this revelation in mind, the explanation of what you are seeing in the image is the helicopter moving away from the camera towards (Naval Air Station) Whidbey Island, just as it was tracked in the moments after the photo was taken,” Rogoway wrote.

The small piece at the top of the light streak that some proclaimed to be the actual missile? A ghost image of the part of the helicopter that entered the image as it passed overhead, the post concluded.

Johnson still wasn’t convinced. He’d seen helicopters streak across his camera field before. This one seemed different. He parked the image firmly in the mystery category.

The Navy said it has no missile launch facilities in the area of its air station on Whidbey, but the theories had already grown legs and wandered off to the wild side of Internet Street. On Tuesday afternoon came a cryptic post in an anonymous internet message board, sparking a whole new wave of interest, this time far more conspiratorially minded than the first one.

“This is not a game,” a commenter named “Q” wrote in a post alongside Johnson’s image. “Certain events were not suppose to take place.”

QAnon

Explaining the “Q” or “QAnon” story and its connection to tiny Hansville and Greg Johnson’s weather web cameras, requires a (brief) trip to the internet’s Wild West, areas of anonymous message boards like 4chan, 8chan and Reddit – websites that have become notable for users who have promoted conspiracy theories, trolling, pranks and attacks – where Q’s story has thrived as a sweeping alt-right theory since October of last year.

Q claims to be a high-ranking government official with access to classified information related to the “deep state,” corruption in the government, the military and President Donald Trump’s administration. Q makes regular, vague and cryptic posts – called “crumbs” – on those subjects as a way of revealing hidden information to the world, as the story goes. Those who follow the posts – they’re called “bakers” – work to piece together the hints and determine their true meaning.

More: A Guide to QAnon, the New King of Right-Wing Conspiracy Theories

The pro-Trump theories and discussions have circulated across Twitter, YouTube and other social media platforms since the initial posts, making wild claims about special counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation, Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, a “global evil,” Satanic worship, child trafficking rings and plenty more.

The main thread of Q’s story reportedly suggests that the Mueller investigation is not actually looking at Russian influence in the 2016 presidential election, but at a web of evil with connections to the above figures that Trump is helping to root out.

In the context of this sprawling network of outlandish theories came Q’s post about the flash of light over Whidbey, which sparked a whole new wave of discussion about the picture. Some theorists speculated about what type of missile was launched, others the reason for its launch and what its target was.

Some in these internet forums tied the image to a Monday Twitter post made by Trump, referencing his meeting with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un: “The fact that I am having a meeting is a major loss for the U.S., say the haters & losers. We have our hostages, testing, research and all missle launches have stoped, and these pundits, who have called me wrong from the beginning, have nothing else they can say! We will be fine!”

The fact that I am having a meeting is a major loss for the U.S., say the haters & losers. We have our hostages, testing, research and all missle launches have stoped, and these pundits, who have called me wrong from the beginning, have nothing else they can say! We will be fine! — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 11, 2018

Q has posted that "misspellings matter," so the fact that Trump misspelled the words “missile” and “stopped” was enough for some to speculate that the tweet was a signal that a U.S. missile had been launched to shoot down – stop – a North Korean missile. Was this, perhaps, the “SKY Event,” Q had mentioned in a previous post? Was the missile targeting Air Force One? Could it have come from a submarine?

“That’s what we are here for,” one commenter wrote. “Everyone brings pieces of the puzzle and we put it all together.”

Back on Skunk Bay

All the attention added up to the biggest few days attention-wise his site’s footprint has seen, among his blog, the actual webcam site and his social media presences, Johnson said. Questions, comments, theories and visits poured in from around the world.

“I knew it was going to be controversial, I knew it was going to get some attention, but boy did I underestimate that,” Johnson said. “It was just wild.”

After a while he decided he had to step away from all the hubbub to get back to reality – and his 41st wedding anniversary on Tuesday. Still though, curious about the helicopter theory, Johnson reached out to Airlift Northwest – the University of Washington helicopter ambulance program – to see if they might have an explanation for why the streak of light looked so different from the other helicopters he’d captured previously. It was there that he got an explanation that satisfied him.

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Airlift Northwest confirmed that one of the its helicopters was flying from Bremerton to Bellingham – a path that took it directly over Skunk Bay – that morning, through the clouds, with its pilot using night vision goggles. The craft’s search light was retracted and pointed straight down but was not switched off, explaining the bright light the camera captured.

Just spoke with the pilot: They were transiting from Bremerton to Bellingham on a standard instrument flight plan, flying in the clouds with night vision goggles. The search light was retracted flush under the nose, but did not switch off and was facing straight down. #HEMS — Airlift Northwest (@AirliftNW) June 13, 2018

Johnson was convinced by the explanation and by Wednesday was ready to declare his “Skunk Bay Missile Crisis” over. He was very convinced. Almost entirely convinced.

“I know that many folks will vehemently disagree with this assessment, much as I did in the beginning,” he said. “I hope they do continue to keep searching for another explanation, but in this case, I am 99 percent convinced this is the real solution. I will always leave that 1 percent open out there because I love a good mystery.”

To follow Johnson’s cameras and all they capture, visit SkunkBayWeather.com.