The Drive writes detailed and through articles about defense technologies (and other areas, such as cars). As far as I am concerned, for the defense enthusiast, it has far better content than the queen of the aerospace publications: Aviation Week and Space Technologies, and it is free, too! I think you could argue that the articles tend to be on the fanboy side, but they have also been critical of weapons systems such as the F-35.
Tyler Rogoway is an award winning journalist/editor on The Drive. HE ALSO HAPPENS TO BE AN EXPERT ON TIME LAPSE PHOTOGRAPHY. The article was written in near real time, with several quick following update posts. There is no way that anyone had a chance to scrub/alter any data across a myriad of sources. This is the only article from any reputable publications, on line, or elsewhere.
Missiles are loud and very bright. There are 5 million people within a 45 mile radius of Whidbey Island. The "launch" site is quite close to the main glide/takeoff path for the Sea Tac airport. There a three other commercial airports in the area, which also serve as Boeing manufacturing sites, some of which have 24 hour operations.
There are zero contemporaneous reports of a "missile launch". Nothing from the Air Traffic Controllers, nothing from any pilots, nothing from anyone awake at that hour, nothing on any flight tracking program, nothing from any military base, of which there are multiple, nothing from any bus or taxi rider/driver. Quick follow up with ATC and other sources shows no record of any "missile" - which gave them very little chance to tamper with the data. Coincidentally, there is a medevac helicopter in the EXACT SAME LOCATION hat would be viewable from the relevant webcam, yet NO ONE from the helicopter reported any missile sighting.
With zero other reports, is it not suspicious that the only sighting came from a TIME LAPSE CAMERA ?
I read over the comments at the post. Of course, there were vehement arguments on either side. Still I was able to synthesize the following points, which I do not have the technical expertise to validate:
1) The fight path is too straight. It is virtually going straight up to the sky. Any targeted missile would show curvature in their flight path
2) If you look at the light streak, it doesn't make sense in three dimensions: it seems to come in front of clouds where it should be behind them.
Give all above, it is impossible that, of 5 million residents, dozens of air traffic controllers, scores or airline pilots and staff inside the airport tower, countless passers by on the street, and probably hundreds of people tracking flight data on their computers , none of them, in any forum anywhere, contemporaneously or afterwards, reported a sighting. Certainly there were cab/Uber/Lyft drivers and passengers out there, and the King County Metro Transit System has 24 hour bus routes. And it can be no coincidence that, at the exact same coordinate there was a medevac helicopter, and none of them aboard reported seeing anything like a missile launch. I cannot provide expert opinion, but the facts above make it plain that the likelihood that this was a multistage missile, say like the SM- 3 or SM-6 -- or any other possible missile -- is quite unlikely.
My consistent reply to your theory (which basically is that a picture that shows a missile in flight is actually a helicopter because.... time lapse) is that I would like to see someone reproduct a picture like the subject one using a helicopter and a time lapse camera. Then I will give the theory some credence. You know, in science, the key is that others can reproduce the results, that’s what makes the experiment valid. Are you a scientist?
Show me any other searchlights, even under time lapse photography, where "plume" of light from the searchlight creates a wide diffuse area right after the light and then narrows. Also, the helicopter, if it were time-lapse photography, would have to be going *exactly* vertical or stationary -- *any* horizontal movement, even incidental drift, would've messed up the straight_line narrow appearance of te light beam.
Oh, and don't most normal aircraft have the requirement of navigation or landing lights (you know, like the little red lights on passenger jets so other planes don't blunder into them)? Why aren't those lights sticking out like beacons in a time-lapse photo?
To quote Q: "These people are STUPID".
What time of day/night (local time) was the missile launch? What is the time stamp on the photo?
'Cuz we *all* know that Metro Transit bus drivers in notoriously lefty King County, are mandated-reporter SkyWatchTM Air Marshals. And that the construction of the bus cabs allows them 180o x 360o visibility, regardless of which way the bus is facing, or what's going on in traffic.
And don't even get me *started* on Lyft and Uber: note the similarity in names, they must be in on the conspiracy, too. "Lyft" like a missile? Uber as in "over" (above)?
Seriously, do you even do as much as run these explanations past the CNN night editor before posting them?