A report posted today at a CNN website claims the "mystery missile launch" on Monday was actually a Chinese missile test. According to the report:Posted on 11/12/2010 7:02:24 PM PST by Korah
A report posted today at a CNN website claims the "mystery missile launch" on Monday was actually a Chinese missile test. According to the report:
China flexed its military muscle Monday evening in the skies west of Los Angeles when a Chinese Navy Jin class ballistic missile nuclear submarine, deployed secretly from its underground home base on the south coast of Hainan island, launched an intercontinental ballistic missile from international waters off the southern California coast. WMR’s intelligence sources in Asia, including Japan, say the belief by the military commands in Asia and the intelligence services is that the Chinese decided to demonstrate to the United States its capabilities on the eve of the G-20 Summit in Seoul and the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in Tokyo, where President Obama is scheduled to attend during his ten-day trip to Asia.
However, the report - placed on CNN's user-generated iReport site - has yet to be vetted or confirmed by CNN, and is full of un-named, unquoted sources. The only link provided goes to a site with basically the same report - again, with no corroboration.
The source of the report is one Wayne Madsen, who once claimed Wikileaks was a CIA operation, and that Al-Qaeda was a front for the military-industrial complex.
No other news organization is reporting the incident as part of a Chinese missile test at this time.
A much less sinister explanation is provided by a site called "Contrail Science".
According to a report at that site, the CBS camera crew probably captured Flight AWE808 from Hawaii to Phoenix, and the perspective of the the viewer made the contrail appear to be a ballistic missile being launched, possibly, from a submarine.
The site reports a very similar incident:
An interesting contrail cropped up off the coast of San Clemente, Orange County, California on December 31st 2009. The curious shape led.......
>>Oh. And you see how this example contrail is lighted on its bottom side. Very bright. Why is that ?<<
I found your question.
Simple question. Simple answer: The sun.
The aircraft is high enough in the atmosphere to still be in sunlight. It is why the cloud is lit up as well.
BTW, that looks like a missile. Notice the “corkscrew” pattern?
JK. :)
And you mentioned seeing them in Seattle as if that makes you an authority.
Yes, I agree.
>>And you mentioned seeing them in Seattle as if that makes you an authority.<<
Well, actually SEEING contrails makes one, by definition, more of an authrity than simply living next to an airport. Likewise, it makes one more of an authority than someone who builds airplanes but never sees them fly.
There are way too many logical fallacies being bandied about on this missile issue.
Did you notice the source of the “smoke trail” is actually behind the haze, and therefore darkened, as the sun is “darkened” behind the haze as it sets?
The bottom of the contrail in the photo you offered is NOT dark. However, I explained, in my post above this one, why the bottom IS dark in other photos.
In the video he zooms way back in that same time frame and it is all still way out to the west. Odd since the plane was supposed to be over Catalina at 4:45 and he didn't start filming until 5:15. Must be a reeeeeeally slow plane not to be able to cover the 35 miles to the coast line in ten minutes which would have been 5:25.
If you look at the photo in the OP, you will see the darkness to which I, and presumably you, saw. I actually addressed this issue in one of the very first threads on this.
As the sun sets behind haze on the horizon, it darkens. Because we all know it is the sun and behind any atmosphere, we interpret it as the sun’s light being blocked by the haze. However, many interpret the contrail here to be a missile trail in front of the haze that has been darkened. It isn’t
What is happening is that the entire trail, all the way to the horizon, is at very high altitude and lit by the sun. But due to the curvature of the earth, the westernmost end of the contrail drops into the horizon, just as the sun does. And like the sun, it is blocked by miles and miles of haze. And if there are actual clouds in that area, it will disappear completely, as the sun does.
I actually saw this very effect last week when I watched the sun set in Hawaii.
In summary, the bottom of the cloud is not darkened by being blocked from sunlight. It is being darkened exactly as the sun is darkened. It’s bright light is being filtered by the atmospheric haze.
BTW, that’s TWO simple questions.
And both were answered days ago, and in detail.
>>If the sun is in the west (set) then wouldn’t the “plane” have to be east of the photographer to reflect light back to him? Or do plane bodies reflect light forward? <<
Actually, yes, they do. If you look into a sunset in the west and hold a mirror up at arms length a few inches higher than your head with the reflective surface parallel to the ground, you can then tilt the mirror slightly to reflect the sun right into your eyes, as the belly of this plane did.
Try it. :)
Yes it is dark. It is facing the camera. The image in post 183 is about as far away from a contrail as you can get. Yet the whole bottom side is bright. The sun is at or below horizon during sunset. The plane is at 30,000 feet. The entire bottom of the contrail should be lighted. The right end of the contrail should be pointing East according to you. The left end is pointing West. At 30,000 feet above horizon during sunset, the entire bottom that can be seen from below should be bright. The Helicopter was no where near 30,000 feet. So all those images do is prove it was a rocket in the video.
There are way too many logical fallacies being bandied about on this missile issue.
Like suggesting that I haven't seen a contrail because I lived near an airport? Bwaaaahahahahaaaaaaa!
You would be amazed at how many planes fly over Denver without stopping there. And then there are all the red sunsets over the mountains which are about exactly 35 miles to the west of Stapleton filled with contrails of dozens of planes each evening that did land there.
Well, if it was slow for a plane, it must have REALLY been slow for a missile. :)
>>The image in post 183 is about as far away from a contrail as you can get. Yet the whole bottom side is bright.<<
Yep. That is because the contrail does not drop all the way to an ocean horizon. It drops into a SIGNIFICANTLY closer hill. Unless there are pretty cloudy conditions, you won’t see the sun get darker in such a photo either. It’s still to high in the sky when it drops below the hill.
>>Like suggesting that I haven’t seen a contrail because I lived near an airport? Bwaaaahahahahaaaaaaa!<<
No, more like suggesting you have seen more contrails simply because you live next to an airport. That is a logical falacy.
Let me clarify. If there were only two airports in the world, one in LA and one in NYC, and you lived next to one of them and I lived in Kansas. I’d see lots of contrails but you would never see one.
Yet you think the bottom of the plane is reflecting bright light. You contradict yourself there.
Where is the proof that the Helicopter taped contrail drops to the actual physical Horizon ?
I hadn’t seen that video. If I was shown that short clip with no context, I would guess that it is a missile. But there is not enough information to confirm. Heck, my first take on some contrails I have seen was that they were missiles. But I had the luxury of following them and it eventually became obvious that they were merely airplanes at level flight. That video serves only to generate questions, rather than answers.
Also, if it were a missile flying away, it would start fast and go slower as it got higher. If it is an aircraft contrail, it would get faster and faster as it approached. But there is not enough information in the video to determine that.
One of the problems with the original video is that They do so much zooming in and out that it is hard to get a lock on any speed variation as the craft continues on it’s path.
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