Posted on 11/10/2010 12:45:55 PM PST by Gargantua
Exploding the “That Wasn’t A Missile” Myth
By Gargantua
What appeared to be a missile rose from below the horizon, streaking into the sky off of California leaving a condensation trail identical to the kind that have been filmed being left by a ground-or-sea-to-air launch of a Minuteman missile or ICBM.
First, the Government was inexplicably mum on the topic. Next came a series of sometimes contradictory explanations. Now, days after the event, the finally agreed-upon explanation hits every news station all at once. “It’s the con-trail of a jet returning from across the Pacific.”
There are two glaring problems with this obviously false “explanation.”
First, the shape and density of the con-trail.
A missile launch would be more dense and wide at its base, just as we see in the images we’ve been shown. A jet’s con-trail would be thinner and smaller the further away as it trailed off toward the horizon. We see the opposite in the availale video footage.
Second, the lighting.
In the video footage, we see stratus clouds out over the ocean behind the rising missile. The setting sun is shining on, and illuminating, the bottom of those clouds. On the con-trail, however, the illumination from the sun appears on the right-hand-edge; just as it would if this were a launching missile’s vertically rising con-trail. There is no illumination of the underside of the “jet’s horizontally oriented con-trail” because it is not a jet’s con-trail, it is a vertically-oriented missile’s launch contrail with the sun lighting up the side away from us. Very obviously so.
The Government must think we are at least as stupid as they are if they think this lame explanation is going to “fly.”
;-\
>>Since when is an honest questioning of a dubious situation “tin foil”?<<
I can actually answer that.
I’ll use 9/11 truthers as an example. We didn’t know exactly how to wrap our minds around that event at the time or shortly afterwards. There were all sorts of comments made at the time. One CNN reporter even marveled, on the air, at the amazing coincidence of two different planes accidentally hitting the towers on the same day, What are the odds?!
Of couse, as more evidence presents itself, a general consensus is formed. We learn of passenger lists, flight schools, black boxes, etc. A solid picture forms.
At that point, anyone saying a missile hit the pentagon or the event was all an Israeli plot is called a “truther”.
This crossed that point for me a couple hundred posts ago. Don’t get me wrong. Anyone who never pays attention to contrails and hasn’t followed this, and thinks it is a missile is simply coming from a position of ignorance. But I would hope that as they gain knowledge they would realize that the body of evidence overwhelmingly points to an aircraft.
My “scorn” is aimed at the “experts” that not only say it is a missile but say it with gusto - and those here that have had TONS of evidence presented to them and simply ignore it.
At this point, my favorite is the folks who think the contrail is “in shadow” close to the horizon. They have obviously never really studied the phenomenon. I have. I’ve seen the sun darkened by haze (as this contrail is at the “base”). When I present that information to them, they ignore it outright. At that point, I see this as a sort of “lead a horse to water...” thing.
[i]The chicoms snuck a silent sub into our waters... just off the coast... and fired an ICBM just to show obama that the technology that clinton gave to them has been mastered.[/i]
Knowing our sub capabilities the chicom sub is now at the bottom of the ocean making a new coral reef.
Fire can’t melt steel!!
>>But there is always a gap, even if only a few tens of feet behind the plane, before the exhaust condenses water vapor in the air.<<
Yep. But it is not apparent when the plane is coming at you. Just as you don’t see the gap between a car and a trailer when it is coming at you.
If a lot of people will just humor me and watch the video with the mental assumption that it is a plane headed generally east, a lot of things clear up very well.
I was responding to this comment: “And then just stop out in front of you with no continuing contrail.”
It happens all the time with contrails. That was my only point.
>>Since it’s so common, I assume you will be able to take a picture similar to the ones we’ve see and post it for all to see just how common it is.<<
That’s already been done. A lot.
However, the reason this is even being discussed is that, although it is a common contrail, it does not look all that common. But it is also not all that uncommon. It is one of the pretty ones.
Even though the CBS affiliate reported the cameraman observed the contrail for ten minutes, there’s no way to know how much of that time the aircraft that created the contrail was in sight, unless someone could specifically ask him. The Department of Defense seized the tape for analysis. Only about a minute of the flight is seen online. If that minute represented the entire flight time, and the other nine minutes was simply filming the leftover contrail, its still possible it was a missile.
But without further clarification, its likely he observed the craft for ten minutes.
>>Of the thousands of contrails I have seen I have never seen one that was unevenly lit from edge to edge. <<
I have. Lots of times. And although they are thin, in the right lighting conditions they can look surprisingly solid. It is all an illusion, of course. Just as one cannot land on a cloud.
I saw a shuttle launch from the causeway on the Cape too. The final Challenger mission. Five miles away and it was just a crackle. Never heard the explosion at all even though it was nearly directly overhead about nine nautical miles altitude and seven nautical miles downrange.
Hunderds of thousands if not millions by now. My dad was carreer Air Force, and I grew up ten miles from a commercial airport.
They tend to be narrow near the jet and wider further back as the moisture dissipates and spreads outwards.
Almost always, but they are never wider, more spread out, thicker and more dense the further away they get. Those that dissipate become less integral, more translucent and less dense, as is the sublimative dispersal nature of that which dissipates.
Indeed, that is what helped to convince me of the fact that this was a missile launch; the thicker part is also more dense, gelatinous and opaque, as would be a launch exhaust. Also, a jet contrail would not curve all the way to the ground except shortly after takeoff; on a flight asserted to be coming from across the Pacific, the wider, less-dense dissipating tail would trail off into the same upper strata in which the jet flew.
I know it's not normal, nor should it be expected that you would assume that you're conversing with somebody who has a 160-plus I.Q., and that it is far more de rigeur to be speaking with someone who is less than totally observant and who does not possess a true photographic memory.
Perhaps that contributed to your assmptions concerning what you mistook for my more commonplace powers of observation and ratiocinational deduction. Not to worry, I understand. I mean, I really understand.
;-|
Having spent the first 27 years of my life living within a mile of Stapleton Int. Airport, hundreds of hours outdoors as a carpenter, hunter, fisherman and wild crafter I can safely say I don't fit in the box you just described. I have also been a fan of space launches and have seen on film almost every major launch since Friendship 7 which I clearly recall watching as a child. And then the Challenger disaster from the Cape.
“You mean, besides that spikey thing on top of your head?”
No, I’m talking about this lame ass post of yours.
WHAT??!! Why would they do that if this were just a jet contrail?!
THAT settles it. It was a Chinese sub-launched missile. Or Russky. It was NOT a jet contrail, not if the DOD siezed the tape! WHat the f___ is wrong with you people?!
;-/
I'm not sure what causeway you are referring to. I was directed to some grassy area. There was a large lagoon between this grassy area and the launch pad.
ML/NJ
It wouldn't have happened with this one as the same atmospheric condition existed from off the coast to the Rockies. As excited as the photographer was, evident from his testimony later, he would not have stopped filming or watching when the contrail ended way out to the west without looking for the airplane which would have been coming straight towards him and reflecting bright silver from the sun.
Well... I’ve pretty much said my piece. I see an aircraft contrail. Clear as day. There’s dozens of examples of similar contrails, even one the following day in the exact same place.
There’s nothing left to argue, IMHO.
OK, so you are not in the group I describe as “ignorant” on the subject, which means...
And over the fifty years of heavy aviation in the socal area (minimum) it is almost unheard of that anyone has raised so many questions about one of those contrails that the FAA and Pentagon still can't identify an aircraft in that air space over 48 hours later.
Again, I was simply responding to the guys remark. And I can only address what I saw in the video and images.
I’d bet several months paychecks that this is an aircraft in “level flight”. I could really use the money to get the large garage up on my Kentucky farm. And there is no way I would lose that bet.
Ah. I see.
This "lame ass(ed)" [sic!] post of mine, which your fifth reply to over an hour-and-a-half was post number two-hundred-and-thirty-two (232)? That "lame-assed" post?
Gotcha. Coming through loud and clear. < snickering >
8^D
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