+1
Frowning takes 68 muscles.
Smiling takes 6.
Pulling this trigger takes 2.
I'm lazy.
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.
Hey, if you want to distract folks from a dismal fail of a overseas tour .. do rules still apply? ;-)
Insofar as we have fast attack subs posted in the pacific and this is not far from CA, you can’t quite say that a chinee SLBM would not have been prior detected as to a launch platform. It is what they do, day in day out- they are sub killers. And never any comment on sub operations from COMSUBPAC or any Sub command, the silent service. So we may know quite a bit, or this is all an op of some type.
He is HOME in Indonesia, isn't he?
No I think they absolutely detected it. They just couldn't stop it.
This was absolutely no accident...
News choppers right on the coast can zoom out pretty damn good...no need for the sarcastic tag.Correction, traffic chopper doing regular traffic-chopper duty observing traffic that happened to catch it during the normal rush hour ...
“NORAD and USNORTHCOM are aware of the unexplained contrail reported off the coast of Southern California yesterday evening,” the agency said in a statement. “At this time, we are unable to provide specific details, but we are working to determine the exact nature of this event. We can confirm that there is no indication of any threat to our nation and we will provide more information as it becomes available.”
JCS Chairman needs to lose his job over this.
“Yep, it was a missile! Biggun too! No idea who fired it. Darnedest thing, huh?”
News to the entire US defense structure: If you don’t know what it is, or where it came from, then why didn’t one of your anti-missile interceptors not blow it out of the sky?
Conclusion: We are sitting ducks, and now the world knows it too. All that money to protect this country, and some jackhole fires an SLBM or the equivalent 35 miles off of LA?!?!
Rush seems to think it’s a Chicom SLBM. Pretty serious provocation, if so.
—
Much more so than the Russian bombers that do it all the time up North.. if true.
live under neither, not as long as I have breath and a trigger finger.
Ellsworth says maybe the Pentagon is demonstrating to Asia that we have the capablity to launch a missle from a sub. Commeon! Getouttahere! Everyone knows we can do that! Everyone know China and Russia can do that, too!
+1
LMAO stop it I enjoyed that laugh too much.
Also note the corkscrew contrail. This is typically done during missile tests to waste some of the rocket energy so it doesn't overshoot a test area.
Occam's Razor points to navy weapons test.
This site (a bit flaky, if you ask me...) is proposing that another missile was launched in Phoenix in a similar timeframe.
FWIW
TWA Flt. 800 comes to mind here. Many witnesses stated they saw a missile contrail streaking toward the doomed airliner off eastern LI back in 1996. My feeling has always been that the FBI and other investigative agencies went into full cover up mode. A electrical spark causing a fuel tank to explode is BS ...
Maybe the Navy created this right after the event so they can investigate?
Are you hearing anything else out there?
Someone a little quick on the trigger?Oops.A NOTAM for today, and the AO was issued
KZLA LOS ANGELES (ARTCC)PALMDALE, CA.
A2832/10 - THE FOLLOWING RESTRICTIONS ARE REQUIRED DUE TO NAVAL AIR WARFARE CENTER WEAPONS DIVISION ACTIVATION OF W537. IN THE INTEREST OF SAFETY, ALL NON-PARTICIPATING PILOTS ARE ADVISED TO AVOID W537. IFR TRAFFIC UNDER ATC JURISDICTION SHOULD ANTICIPATE CLEARANCE AROUND W537 AND CAE 1176. CAE 1155 WILL NOT BE AVAILABLE FOR OCEANIC TRANSITION. CAE 1316 & CAE 1318 WILL NOT BE AVAILABLE FOR OCEANIC TRANSITION. CAE 1177 WILL BE AVAILABLE FOR OCEANIC TRANSITION. W537 ACTIVE, CAE 1176 CLOSED. SURFACE - FL390, 09 NOV 20:00 2010 UNTIL 10 NOV 01:00 2010.
CREATED: 08 NOV 20:52 2010
Ia m sure bonehead has been briefed between bong hits bowing on his prayer rug.
Remember Gibbs, Obama, MIL, MO and VJ with Oprah on speed dial are in charge.
Yawn.
Except when two different 737s were also destroyed by center fuel tank exposions.
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