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.
News choppers right on the coast can zoom out pretty damn good...no need for the sarcastic tag.
UPDATE
Pentagon has no clue who launched this missile
Not buying it.
No sale.
Do they?If it orbits, they can 'track' (estimate an orbital path/calculate orbital paramters) using SPASUR, otherwise, it's civilian RADARs like the ASR9's and 11's and the up-dated ARSR-4's ...Yes, they should. Yes, perhaps they once did. But do they still?
The ARSR-4 keeps an eye on the perimeter of the country (mainland).
Understood. But IF that’s the case- wouldn’t they have brought potus home immediately?
Mexican Drug Cartel? (they have to be doing something with all those billion$....)
“How to explain it in words”????
Okay, here are some choices:
“A foreign power launched off our coast and caught us with our pants down.”
OR
“One of our own subs lit one off accidentally.”
OR
“Some goofball built a rocket and launched it without FAA approval.”
OR
“Our nutso White House occupant was trying to send a message to someone.”
THERE...several words the military can use to explain it to us.
“This is already not the same country I grew up in and if this falls off the news page and we have no answers, ...”
How old are you? Just asking because if they can drop this off the headlines and never explain it, that is exactly the country I grew up in.
I can't imagine the Pentagon after all these public denials, coming out and saying they were just kidding....Will they??
I don't see that happening.
No matter how this is explained, it's not good.
I realize this. I agree with what the retired Navy Captain just said on Fox News. They damn well know. We are not under threat now but were we? Could have been an accident as I stated.
What I meant by mutiny is more a turbin wearing bubblehead but this is not likely because then you would THINK a target would have been hit.
Foreign ship? Our ship? Accident? We will never know. The Navy won’t release that PO3rd class Joe Blow effed up.
Maybe that missile was shot to make him think twice about coming back across the Pacific.
I know. I was laughing at the poster for suggesting an airplane caused this contrail which had a ballistic trajectory.
Anyone notice...NO COMMENT FROM THE WHITE HOUSE ON THIS? 19 HOURS LATER?!?
the meeting with the commies is in Seoul...next stop on his trip.
NORAD can track pebbles in orbit - they tracked this thing!
Im only up to #80 so it may already have been posted - but didn’t the Chicoms surface one of their subs in the middle of one of our battle groups in the Pacific, and no one ever saw them coming until the conning tower broke water?
Happened a couple or three years ago IIRC.
I was speculating a possible EMP hit than didn’t go off.
Since no one saw an impact or detonation anywhere, and I assume nothing that came back down has been found, we really have no way of telling, do we?
Since it was headed North up the CA coast, has anyone checked to see if Sarah Palin’s house is still there?
China knows Sun Tzu a lot better than most of us do, and no doubt has a plan in place to take us down without having to destroy or irradiate too many useful resources.
There’s no guarantee that it won’t work like a charm.
By the way our economy is going, it may have been working swimmingly for quite some time now.
Will it be worse living under Chinese communism or Sharia Law?
Tough call, ain’t it?
Whoa...
That depends on the balls POTUS has. This one has none, or at least Moochelle and her mother in law have not given em back yet.....
“I am guessing it was a US military launch because I like Occams Razor so much.”
My guess as well but I wonder why their initial response is to deny a test.
Maybe it’s Scenario 6 ...
Scenario-1: China is agitating India, Zero gave India OK to fire from Calif coast to “tell” China to back off ...
Scenario-2: China is treatening dollar collapse via “we’ll buy no more US bonds” ... so Zero lights off a candle ...
Scenario-3: China or Russia has hacked US, UK, FR or India sub system to launch SLBM “without auth” ...
Scenario-4: China launches off US coast to let US know it is not happy with QE2 ...
Scenario-5: A coup has occured in the US, but we don’t know it yet, and someone else now has the controls
Scenario-6: Zero is chickening-out of the G20 and needs a reason to come home fast ...
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