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Best guess right now is classified test by the US. The cruise ship was very far south of this location. Passengers cell phones still worked when their ship based cell phone tower became operational. So the EMP attack story was just a floater story. That ship was down south off the coast of Baja. In between Catalina Island and Mexico is San Clemente Island. Owned by the US Navy and was the site of Polaris Missile launches according to Wikipedia.

Then there is this interesting abstract from an online article. Got to run. Later.

Thinking About Future Naval Ballistic Missile Defense

Excerpt follows.

The biggest challenge in the future of Navy ballistic missile defense is fielding the missile launching system. Theater ballistic missile interceptors are too long for existing vertical launch systems used to launch missiles from surface combatants. Indeed ground based interceptors for BMD are so large, that the 24,000 ton LPD-17 hull has been discussed as a possible hull for deploying long range BMD interceptors in the future. While I believe the detection of ballistic missiles will remain primarily a surface warfare role, I expect that by 2020 we will be talking about ballistic missile defense interceptors being launched from underwater.

There are various competing ideas how submarines may operate in the future, and that future may be closer than people think. One side effect of fielding the Ohio class SSGN on the submarine warfare community has been a wealth of creativity on what is possible when submerged submarines in forward areas are integrated into communication networks and are able to access remote systems. Has anyone noticed the Navy has never listed a SSGN on any future fleet plan in the past? Have you ever wondered why? The operational concepts emerging from the development and experimentation of unmanned underwater vehicles in the underwater warfare community have led to the conceptual development of new potential strike options for underwater warfare.

The “battle box” concept is one such emerging concept, and could potentially play a major role in future ballistic missile defense. The battle box concept is not new, indeed it is similar to a program developed during WWII in Nazi Germany, stolen and tested by the Soviets in the 1950s in a program known as the Golem submarine towed missile launcher.

The idea is for an attack submarine to tow a large container system when deploying forward, and park the battle box in the middle of the sea – underwater – in its patrol zone. The battle box would remain submerged and stationary in the patrol zone, remain linked to the submarines network, and carry a strike payload on behalf of the submarine. For example, a “battle box” could potentially be 80′x30′x30′, and once towed into location pivot 90 degrees to wait in deep water. Stationary underwater, the battle box becomes a stealthy weapon system giving a remote operator the capability to surface the battle box to ~30′ and launch missile payloads at enemy targets. In the AEGIS ballistic missile defense network, a battle box would act as a stealthy underwater missile silo for large ballistic missile defense interceptors.