Posted on 12/06/2010 10:37:18 PM PST by 2ndDivisionVet
On Monday evening, November 8, a helicopter-borne Los Angeles news crew shot stunning footage of what appeared to be a missile rising out of the Pacific about 35 miles west of the city.
In the days since, competing theories have crowded the Internet as to what that news crew actually recorded. In a quick survey, nearly half of the technical experts with whom I corresponded were inclined to believe the jet contrail theory given tepid blessing by the Pentagon.
My own research into the destruction of TWA Flight 800 off the coast of Long Island in July 1996, however, has left me forever suspicious of official government explanations.
This is especially true when there is a Democrat in the White House, as there also was in 1996. On these occasions, the media can be impressively incurious.
One alternative theory for a missile scenario deserves attention if only for its compelling logic. In the dissection of any seeming conspiracy, logic precedes logistics. The why of an event matters at least as much as the what.
Try this logic on for size: Last week, President Obama wrapped up his Asian junket with a trip to the G-20 summit in Seoul.
There, as Bloomberg reports, Obama “attacked China’s policy of undervaluing its currency.” Continuing its military metaphors, Bloomberg adds that the gathering was “marked by clashes.” Not without its own ammunition, China “took aim at the Federal Reserve’s monetary easing.”
Had the Chinese wanted to use more than words to show their ability to strip America of its creature comforts, they could not have chosen a more symbolic way than an EMP-- electromagnetic pulse--attack on, say, a cruise ship like the Splendor.
As it happens, the Splendor lost its power early Monday, November 8, some 44 miles offshore and roughly 200 miles south of San Diego. No media report that I could find questioned the official “fire in the engine room” explanation. It may even be true.
Later that same day, however, about 300 miles north, the news crew spotted the apparent missile launch. With the presumed missile launch might we have been saying, “You can take out your cruise ships, but we can take out your country?” Or might the Chinese have been saying, “We have you got you squarely in our crosshairs?”
“Andrew,” a retired U.S. Navy fire control technician platform-certified in the gun and missile systems on board Adams class guided missile destroyers, argues for the latter.
“What I saw in the recent video concerning the object 30 miles off the coast of CA,” contends Andrew, “is blatantly a foreign made, large Cruise or ICBM missile, being launched by a sub-surface aquatic platform.”
Andrew believes it is not one of ours because the vapor trail appears brownish or "dirty." Says Andrew, “We put a lot of sweat and money into our ‘birds’ and part of that is the fuel cells. They burn very clean, a whitish-blue in fact, not a dirty blackish brown.”
Adds Andrew, “Any high-ranking expert who believes this is a condensation trail off of a commercial airliner is lying or stupid. I hope you hear from other Fire Control Techs who saw the same thing I did!”
Andrew also rules out the possibility that this was one of our missiles accidentally launched. A launch of a missile of this size--large Cruise or ICBM according to Andrew--requires at least five people all doing something specific at the right time.
“There is no ‘one red button’ to launch a missile,” says Andrew. “That's all Hollywood BS. It’s impossible to accidentally launch a missile!”
As was true with the demise of TWA Flight 800, which killed 230 good people, the media are content to sleep through the ensuing investigation. Citizen journalists, however, are a naturally skeptical breed.
Glen Schulze, whose technical expertise proved very helpful in the TWA Flight 800 investigation, sent the FAA a Freedom of Information Act request within three days of the sighting.
In that Schulze has already experienced roadblocks unique to his own situation, allow me to cite his references for those who might be interested in following up on their own.
Pursuant to the Freedom of Information Act, 5 U.S.C. 552 and /or the Privacy Act, 4 U.S.C. 552a, I hereby submit the following specific request for SO CAL TRACON Radar Data from FAA monitored flight operations on the following day and times in electronic form via CD media.
This is an urgent FOIA request for SO CAL TRACON Radar Data ---both primary and secondary returns ---- described and identified as follows----
An electronic file/s containing time-of-day and the spherical radar coordinates and applicable beacon altitudes of all radar target returns of all types ---- primary and secondary --- from all SO CAL TRACON antennas within a 100 Nautical mile range of Santa Catalina Island between 0000 and 0300 Zulu 9 November, 2010. The returns from multiple FAA antenna sites may be integrated together into one 3 hour file time base as was done by the SO CAL TRACON in responding to FOIA# 2008-002427WS.
There was a time when the major media used to do the reporting citizen journalists now do. Today, the media content themselves with recycling White House press releases and dismissing real reporters as “conspiracy theorists.”
FIRST OF ALL, keep up with current events and understand that the camerman, according to a FReeper who has interviewed him, stated that the object was in view for no more than two or three minutes. The majority of the video was of lingering plume. Do your homework and read the threads. I'll not do it for you.
If the majority of folks who claimed to have shot missiles and/or flown fighters were saying what you say -- that "this was clearly a jet contrail," and IF it looked even remotely like it could be a contrail on a horizontal east heading in a photo taken AT SUNSET (!!!), I'd believe you believed what you're writing.
The thing is that in public forum after public forum after public forum, and I have read quite literally THOUSANDS of posts from what appear to be unique users, of those thousands, in the MANY dozens I've read by folks claiming military experience in missileering, the vast majority believe the video was a missile launch, and of that vast majority, most of them say the idea that it was the condensation trail of a commercial airliner is ludicrous. I've done the reading. Anyone who doubts what I've observed in the vast majority of those claiming professional missileering experience who are posting on forums, can go read for themselves. It's that simple.
Even more simple: one does not need to be an expert to understand the lighting and the perspective in the video, and one SURE AS HELL doesn't need to be an expert in live time to discern a live airplaine contrail from a live missile plume. It's absurd to think otherwise, and anyone who actually believes that any congnizant human could be fooled for more than a few moments that an airliner was a missile, is missing something.
Since, after a brief review of your posts, find myself with no real reast to doubt your claims of having shot missiles and flown fighters (did you shoot the missiles from the ground, or from the air? How much experience do you have watching ground-launched missiles?), I must conclude that: you know full well that the setting sun reveals the vertical plume of a north-west-bound object, and you seek to protect or comfort Americans from knowing a very scary truth.
Why do I assume this? Because I know that the phenomenon in the video wasn't an airliner leaving a contrail. I know it from the evidence and my own empirical experience, I know it because of MANY aviation experts ranging from military to non-military with whom I have spoken, several in a unique position of authority to know exactly what this wasn't and who have assiduously avoided comforting me and others by reassuring us that it was just a harmless airplaine, all sources that I will not divulge on a public forum. Further, it makes perfect sense that quite a few FReepers have sources that they also will not divulge, and so have info at hand that confirms what their brains told them was true from the first viewing of the video:
It was a north-west-bound VERTICAL plume. The setting sun proves it, and the pretend "optical illusion" involving curvature of the earth is pure and simple nonsense.
Sorry, Hulka, but that's just the way it is. If you're what you say you are, I don't for an instant believe that you truly believe that it was a UPS plane.
Instead, you nervously laugh it off in attempts to ridicule me with stuff and nonsense about alien probes,
In other words, you've never seen a missile launch, have you? In fact, you're so ignorant about them that you think they neccessarily come with sonic booms!!!!!
Let's say YOU are a person with wide experience in seafaring, and you saw a lot of landlubbers being convinced that a rowboat on the horizon could be seen from 20 miles away. Let's say I was one of those landlubbers who, although I had never been on a boat in the ocean in my life, was convinced that I knew BETTER than you, who had been on a boat plenty of times and knew quite well that at a distance of maybe four miles, the rowboat would disappear at the curvature of the earth ... and yet lops with zero empirical experience but who believed "scientific" post after post, loaded with theorems and graphs and overlays and photos to "prove" that the boat could be seen 20 miles away from another boat on the horizon, were blowing you off as a kook and nut for not understanding "the obvious." What would you think of me if I told you you were full of sh*t, that the boat COULD be seen at 20 miles?
Keep talking about aliens. It's all you've got.
Yes, shot A/A missiles. Also a graduate of the USAF FWS and now a “weapons” focal for a major defense contractor; been to WSMR, Vandenberg as well as other locations outside the CONUS to witness many ground-based missile shots.
The contrail was a contrail from a jet.
http://contrailscience.com/los-angeles-missile-contrail-explained-in-pictures/ for an analysis that explain the situation.
Eight minutes was from other eyewitnesses and in my post to you, I did not say the cameraman saw it for eight minutes
You never do address the points I raised regarding the different characteristics between missiles: “The speed of the object was a great give away: if traveling at moderate speed (i.e., low Mach for a missile), there is no way it would have remained in view as long as it did. Further, missiles/rocket motors have a short burn time and never burn for “8 minutes” (that was observed), and that includes ICBMs as they have a boost phase that takes them vertical into a ballistic flight profile, peaking around 700 miles or higher. . .that is why they are “ballistic” missiles. Cruise missile do not fly a ballistic profile and they do not fly very high, as it is tactically unsound for a sub-sonic missile to do so. They also do not leave a smoke trail as they use an air-breathing motor. Besides, a smoke trail makes interception by a fighter soooo darned easy.”
No, I'm not. Why? I don't care.
'Instead, you nervously laugh it off in attempts to ridicule me with stuff and nonsense about alien probes, "
I'm not "nervously laughing". I'm hysterically laughing. I'm sorry you can't tell the difference.
"In other words, you've never seen a missile launch, have you? "
No, I haven't seen "a" missile launch. I've seen innumerable missile launches. I was a dependent child who lived at Point Mugu - twice. And later, I was a service member who was stationed at Point Mugu.
You think a ballistic missile was launched from an area just off the coast of some of the most densely populated area of the country, and in waters that are some of the most recreationally and commercially traversed waters in the world, and yet NO ONE saw a thing, except for a CBS helicopter news camera. It's facially absurd.
The North/South maritime navigation lanes are EXACTLY 35-miles off the California coast, and yet not a single maritime vessel - crewed with professionally trained observers with a visual horizon exceeding 20-miles, reported to the US Coast Guard ANY unusual event - you know, like a ICBM breaching the water surface and accelerating to supersonic speeds in seconds after launch - cause you know - that wouldn't get anyone's attention who might have been actively surveilling the horizon.
Please, don't respond. I can't suffer anymore of your idiocy.
I've seen innumerable missile launches, and have never heard a sonic boom associated with them that I recall.
I grew up in a seafaring family and community that made its living by fishing the waters off the California coast (indeed, the entire West coast). I've spoken to a few fishermen about the launch, and found them amused at arguments built on assumptions there were "legions" of potential witnesses on boats or ships in the Channel whose silence, the contrail pushers contend, "was deafening." Guys who've BEEN OUT THERE confirm what I know (because I've been out there a few times myself) and tell me there would be a handful of potential witnesses. We ALL of us here should be able to figure out on our own of that handful, the likelihood of half a dozen going to the trouble of posting online or shouting to the media about what they'd seen, is extraordinarily small.
So again, ODH reveals ignorance, and he fortifies it by insulting those who call him on it as kooks associated with night-time alien visits and wacky alien probes.
Very sad.
Overpressures in the sonic boom impact area, however, will not be uniform. Boom intensity is greatest directly under the flight path, progressively weakening with greater horizontal distance away from the aircraft flight track. Ground width of the boom exposure area is approximately one statute mile for each 1,000 feet of altitude (5 m/m); that is, an aircraft flying supersonic at 30,000 feet will create a lateral boom spread of about 30 miles, or at 10,000 meters a spread of 50 kilometers.Other maneuvers, such as deceleration and climbing, can reduce the strength of the shock. In some instances weather conditions can distort sonic booms.[4]
However, not all booms are heard at ground level. The speed of sound at any altitude is a function of air temperature. A decrease or increase in temperature results in a corresponding decrease or increase in sound speed. Under standard atmospheric conditions, air temperature decreases with increased altitude.
A vertically rising missile doesn't create a "carpet effect" of the sonic boom traveling across the ground the way an aircraft does because it is not traveling horizontal to the ground. The cone of the boom is all straight down from it. In order for the boom from a missile to be heard 35 miles from its launch point it would have to be over 30,000 ft in altitude as said above. Obviously a missile would reach supersonic speed long before it attained 30k ft. The other factors mentioned above explain why it would carry even less of a distance. Has anyone watching a shuttle launch from the Cape ever heard a sonic boom from the shuttle? Of course not.
Who observed it moving for 8 minutes? That's new information or misinformation.
I wonder if the word ballistic (the B in ICBM), might be informative here.
federalregister.govSmall Takes of Marine Mammals Incidental to Specified Activities; McDonnell Douglas Aerospace Delta II Vehicles at Vandenberg Air Force Base, CA
On the Channel Islands, the sonic boom signature is expected to be indistinguishable from ambient noise levels. Over water, the sonic boom is significantly less than that estimated to cause a temporary threshold shift injury and NMFS is unaware of any scientific evidence indicating that a behavioral response results from a single, low-frequency sonic boom.
There is the affect of a sonic boom from a missile launched on land on the coast of CA and they assess that the freakin' seals right under it will barely hear it if at all. No one thirty miles away would hear anything.
I stood five miles from the launch pad of the final Challenger launch and didn't hear a sonic boom. I didn't hear any sound from it exploding either. At the time it was 73 seconds into its flight at an altitude of 48,000 ft (9.1 miles), speed - Mach 1.92 and approx. 5 miles downrange. Why was there no sonic boom audible at the causeway? Why wasn't that humongous explosion audible there?
I do have facts, I have video of a contrail. That some nitwit tv reporter thinks it is a missile isn’t surprising, what is surprising is that this is the one time some freepers decide suddenly have faith in the media. Maybe there needs to be a separate forum here where the art bell fans can talk about the mars face, the “missile” launch, and Area 51.
It is operated by United Parcel Service who, I would think, owns it, as well.
Really? That is precisely what has been going on for exactly a full month today.
Of course, there are serious questions about the "normally cognizant" part...
After a full month (today) of this, I'll go with "A"...
Check out my posts on these "missile" threads for the past month. I (and a handful of others who have examined all the evidence (not just "stared through a soda straw" at 14 seconds of a deceptively edited SeeBS video) have answered and refuted -- with FACTS -- all claims that it was a "missile".
CHALLENGE: Read my posts - and then decide who is "uninformed".
... but right on target...
... but right on target...
I agree.. :)
Cashill is the one who figured out that Ayers co-wrote Dreams. The guy is very, very good. He is admitting this piece is quite speculative
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.