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November 9th, 2010

Update: Thomas G. McInerney, Retired United States Air Force Lieutenant General: “That is a missile, it’s launched from a submarine… I am absolutely certain that that is not an aircraft.”

The venue was Fox News, but I happen to agree with Thomas McInerney’s assessment. I’ve transcribed the salient points of what he said. My ears started to bleed from listening to those other idiots.

Here’s the bulk of what what Thomas McInerney said, along with the video below:

This is not an airplane because of the plume and the way you see that plume. Airplanes do not con at sea level or 5,000 feet like that. I spent 35 years flying fighters and I never saw an airplane con like that. That is a missile, it’s launched from a submarine and you can see it goes through a correction course and then it gives a very smooth trajectory, meaning that the guidance system is now kicked in. It’s going at about a 45 degrees away from you. That’s why you’re not seeing a lot of vertical velocity… I am absolutely certain that that is not an aircraft…

I do not think it’s a foreign threat…

If it’s a black program, a classified program… and for whatever reason…that missile went off. And if you go to any fighter squadron, navy or air force, in the world today, they’re going to agree with me. Now, they’ve obviously got a program that maybe they do not want exposed, there are a lot of them, it could be a new, experimental missile and [the fact is???] (garbled) I do not believe it’s a foreign entity.

Even though it’s Fox News, the information is inline with the comments from Jane’s Missiles and Rockets editor, Doug Richardson and the Notice to Mariners below.

—End Update—

Update: Editor of Jane’s Missiles and Rockets: “It’s a Solid Propellant Missile”

Via: CBS:

Doug Richardson, the editor of Jane’s Missiles and Rockets, examined the video for the Times of London and said he was left with little doubt.

“It’s a solid propellant missile,” he told the Times. “You can tell from the efflux [smoke].”

Richardson said it could have been a ballistic missile launched from a submarine or an interceptor, the defensive anti-missile weapon used by Navy surface ships.

—End Update—

Update: Ongoing U.S. Navy Exercise with Japanese Navy?

LykeX posted this one in comments. It mentions this Notice to Mariners:

U.S. Notice to Mariners Number 45-2010 (2010-11-06)

434/10(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 427/10.

Via: Dynamics of Cats:

This is almost certainly part of an exercise underway with the Japanese Navy.

Last week a missile fired from Kauai was intercepted by a Japanese ABM ship,successfully, according to reports.

The exercise probably followed through with more challenging targets.

A Submarine Launched Ballistic Missile from further away would be suitable, so someone fired one from a Navy Firing Range, which had a warning already out on it.

By design, the livefire exercise is a “surprise” – they don’t cheat by telling the target when the missile is arriving, or from where, so therefore no notice to locals.

PS: contrail science (currently down from overload) has a nice article on how aircraft contrails can look like missile launches when the sun is low and there is perspective foreshortening

this may well be the explanation, but I am a little bit skeptical, for a couple of reasons:

on the video, when they zoom in, you see a bright spot at the tip of the contrail which looks more like rocket exhaust than specular reflection, to my amateur eye;

and, the track looks more like videos of solid fuel exhaust than condensation contrails, again to my untrained eye

– the low speed, quoted as evidence against it being a missile is consistent if it is a solid fuel rocket in boost phase and going sharply away from the viewer rather than towards as with a contrail.

anyway – the Navy may not have fired any missiles that night, but they did warn in advance that they might do so – there is also, in the same NotMa, a warning of gunnery exerises in Sea of Japan – which would be consistent with a target area with a Japanese ABM destroyer looking to shoot it down

Or not.

—End Update—

Update: Contrail?

Via: Washington Post:

A series of U.S. government agencies said Tuesday that they could not explain what created a vapor trail that lit up the sky Monday night over Southern California.

But a series of civilian experts said they could. It was not a missile, they said, as many conjectured, but an airplane.

…

Adm. Gary Roughead, chief of naval operations, told reporters and editors at The Washington Post that it “wasn’t a Navy missile.” He declined to go into more detail. He did, however, appear to be smiling when he said it.

Said John Pike, a defense and aerospace expert who runs GlobalSecurity.org: “This thing is so obviously an airplane contrail, and yet apparently all the king’s horses and all the king’s men can’t find someone to stand up and say it.” He added, “I guess the president’s out of town.”

The object, Pike said, was moving too slowly to be a missile, adding: “There’s a reason that they’re called rockets.”

It looked like a missile launch, he said, because of an optical illusion that made the contrail appear as though it started on the ground and zoomed straight up.

—End Update—

[!?]

Via: 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.

CBS station KFMB put in calls to the Navy and Air Force Monday night about the striking launch off the coast of Los Angeles, which was easily visible from the coast, but the military has said nothing about the launch.

KFMB showed video of the apparent missile to former U.S. Ambassador to NATO Robert Ellsworth, who is also a former Deputy Secretary of Defense, to get his thoughts.

Scroll down for KFMB video showing the launch.

“It’s spectacular… It takes people’s breath away,” said Ellsworth, calling the projectile, “a big missile”.

Magnificent images were captured by the KCBS news helicopter in L.A. around sunset Monday evening. The location of the missile was about 35 miles out to sea, west of L.A. and north of Catalina Island.

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.

Ellsworth urged American to wait for definitive answers to come from the military.

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.

“It could be a test-firing of an intercontinental ballistic missile from a submarine … to demonstrate, mainly to Asia, that we can do that,” speculated Ellsworth.

Ellsworth said such tests were carried out in the Atlantic to demonstrate America’s power to the Soviets, when there was a Soviet Union, but he doesn’t believe an ICBM has previously been tested by the U.S. over the Pacific.

Officially, at least, the projectile remains a mystery missile.

More: Mystery Missile Contrail Stumps Pentagon

Via: AFP:

The US military has so far been unable to explain an apparent missile contrail off the coast of California and is still trying to determine its cause, a Pentagon spokesman said Tuesday.

KCBS television caught the long exhaust plume on camera as it arced into the evening sky west of Los Angeles on Monday night, sparking reports of a missile launch.

Colonel David Lapan, a Pentagon spokesman, said so far none of the military or Department of Defense (DoD) agencies that might have launched a missile “have come up and said they were involved in this.”

“So we’re still trying to find out what the contrail off the coast of southern California was caused by,” he said.

“Right now, all indications are that it was not a DoD activity,” he said.

Ordinarily, a missile test would involve closure of air space and notifications to mariners of when to stay clear of the area, but none were known to have been made in this case, Lapan said.

He said it was “implausible” that a military exercise would have been conducted so near Los Angeles’ busy international airport.

“That’s why at this point the operative term is unexplained,” Lapan added.

Related [???]: Florida: Simulated Nuclear Weapon Incident