Posted on 11/09/2010 8:05:31 AM PST by Gennie
(CBS) A mysterious missile launch off the southern California coast was caught by CBS affiliate KCBS's cameras Monday night, and officials are staying tight-lipped over the nature of the projectile.
CBS station KFMB put in calls to the Navy and Air Force Monday night about the striking launch off the coast of Los Angeles, which was easily visible from the coast, but the military has said nothing about the launch.
KFMB showed video of the apparent missile to former U.S. Ambassador to NATO Robert Ellsworth, who is also a former Deputy Secretary of Defense, to get his thoughts.
Scroll down for KFMB video showing the launch.
Video here
"It's spectacular… It takes people's breath away," said Ellsworth, calling the projectile, "a big missile".
Magnificent images were captured by the KCBS news helicopter in L.A. around sunset Monday evening. The location of the missile was about 35 miles out to sea, west of L.A. and north of Catalina Island.
A Navy spokesperson told KFMB it wasn't their missile. He said there was no Navy activity reported in the area Monday evening.
On Friday night, Vandenberg Air Force Base, in California, launched a Delta II rocket, carrying an Italian satellite into orbit, but a sergeant at the base told KFMB there had been no launches since then.
Ellsworth urged American to wait for definitive answers to come from the military.
When asked, however, what he thought it might be, the former ambassador said it could possibly have been a missile test timed as a demonstration of American military might as President Obama tours Asia.
"It could be a test-firing of an intercontinental ballistic missile from a submarine … to demonstrate, mainly to Asia, that we can do that," speculated Ellsworth.
Ellsworth said such tests were carried out in the Atlantic to demonstrate America's power to the Soviets, when there was a Soviet Union, but he doesn't believe an ICBM has previously been tested by the U.S. over the Pacific.
Officially, at least, the projectile remains a mystery missile.
We should make a reasonable effort to make sure it hasn't been posted, but unless it is in a side bar, they sometimes are hard to find.
Okay so here’s my take;
1. Wherever that missile landed, its on its way to being recovered (assuming it sank into the sea), I guarantee that.
2. Can’t imagine an accidental launch by a U.S. Submarine. I’d have to imagine the number of failsafe’s to such a launch would prohibity something accidental occurring.
3. If it’s China/Russia/N. Korea - we got a problem.
And now the completely TIN FOIL explanation would be that Obama wanted the military to orchestrate a “missile attack” (maybe without a warhead on it) at an unpopulated area in the CA desert in order to start a war with, say, North Korea and, you know, do the diversion thingy; and said missile went off course on the way to its target... But I’m not into tinfoil, just a rumination.
In the meantime, some E-2 on a submarine is regretting asking what the red button is for (as he pushed it)
I knew there was a reasonable explanation for this.
uh oh, my folks live near Vancouver, BC, hope it wasn’t headed there, they aren’t answering the phone. Although I’m sure if there was a strike anywhere, I’d have heard about it by now.
Which is the theory I lean towards but when Stephonopolous was in such a panic his stream of thoughts rattled off the word “bombing” and said it while we were under attack.
?
He did the same thing six days later on Chris Matthews.
In the days after 9/11, everybody wanted to come clean about TWA800. Nobody forced the issue and the moment passed.
Given my background, I am going to speculate that this was a submarine launch of a ICMB or surface launch of a Standard Missile.
If this was not a US Navy launch or a test of the THAD anti-ballistic missile systems (such as a test vehicle), and it turns out it was a foreign military doing this; all hell is going to break loose politically for Obama.
Can you see it now?
“Obama lets foreign military launch missiles miles off the coast of California?
OR
Who is protecting American while the king jets off to another vacation?”
I am guessing it was a US military launch because I like Occams Razor so much.
Yeah, if a nuke exploded 14 hours ago over North America you probably would have heard about it by now.
I think your comment is more prescient than even you realize.
Taking at face value that this isn’t a US military launch, the chances are that this is a SLBM from an unfriendly power. What a demonstration! Get within 35 miles of the enemy coast and launch, undetected. No warning. Red October, anyone?
If we can assume that the news helicopter was shoreward of the launch site, the trajectory of the missile appears to be away from the mainland. They seem to have taken the precaution that the projected trajectory would be away from the US mainland. They were pretty confident they could get away too, that we wouldn’t (or couldn’t) prosecute an attack on the launching sub.
And I while I agree that this was, at best, reckless, it seems to have worked. Our entire national defense apparatus is standing there with their mouths agape, having NO CLUE. They didn’t detect the LAUNCH, let alone the sub. We are reduced to looking at some traffic chopper footage to figure out what happened. It couldn’t be any worse than if they set fire to a bag of dog poop on the front porch of the White House, rang the bell, and took off.
Our coup have been counted, so to speak.
“I am guessing it was a US military launch because I like Occams Razor so much.”
Here is hoping you and Occam are right.
Tatt
Well it appeared to be headed towards the sunset, east. And it seems headed towards the NE if the time for the video capture is correct.
No sense getting TOO WORRIED about some unknown cause even when it is quite startling. In the end G-d is in complete command of this world, so stick with doing good and being happy, even in the face of a storm. Or at least trying not to be so bad, and not getting completely INTO CAPS LOCK MODE.
When did the sun start setting in the east?
I know there are multiple threads about this today. The mods locked two or three, and the top two on this search are still active. This one and one from around 6:20 AM.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/2624127/posts
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/search?m=all;o=time;q=quick;s=missile%20launch
X-15 taken out of retirement.
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