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.
Chicom?
Rooskie?
I saw that too, and throw in the fact that CBS just happened to have a camera pointed in that direction, and I suspect that someone in the military tipped off CBS to get the word out without officially getting the word out. The big question is why?
“Why is the US NAVY Denying this???”
Because they didn’t have anything to do with it.
Sad, some posters think denial is proof of a cover-uo, and lack of proof is proof of how good the cover-uo actually is.
Exactly. That is why it is not a ballistic missile contrail.
It is an aircraft contrail and it isn’t the first time that such a lit contrail has caused this confusion.
The conspiracy nuts have claimed a similar launch a few days ago in the US and provided images. It is a simple case of perspective. As an aviation enthusiast I’ve seen several aircraft contrails that appear to rise from the horizon. It is all about perspective.
Or the Pentagon could be showing off to Hussein as to who has control of the military?
WTF?
If it wasn’t the Navy then we have a huge problem....bigger than you could possibly imagine.
hmmm..
You’re wrong....that was not an aircraft contrail.
No problem bigger that Obama and all the elite establishment corruption he is hopefully the high water mark of.
That, to me, is the 'dog that did not bark'.
Not a derogatory reference to the Navy, but a reference to a Sherlock Holmes (A. Conan Doyle) story.
The report said it had a traffic helicopter in the air at the time...CBS’ side of the story makes all of the sense in the world.
Exactly.
NORTH KOREA LAUNCHED FROM A SUB BUT THE IMAN OBUMMER DIDN’T CARE. NO BIG DEAL. ITS A MAN CAUSED PROBLEM.
From Strategypage.com (this was posted several days before the launch)...
Chinese Nukes Move South
A Chinese Type 093 class SSN (nuclear attack sub) was recently seen moored at their new naval base on Hainan island. This base, just north of Vietnam, must make the Indians nervous, because more and more Chinese warships are showing up in the Indian Ocean. It was only a year ago that China confirmed, as many suspected, that the first Type 093 boat entered service in December, 2006. Officially, that was a secret, and Chinese nuclear subs don’t go to sea much, so it’s difficult to tell if new ones are actually in service, and not just tied up at a pier for further work after launching. But now the 093 boats are obviously being moved south, and maybe into the Indian Ocean as well.
The Type 093 class SSN looks a lot like the three decade old Russian Victor III class SSN design. And the subsequent Type 94 SSBN (ballistic missile carrying nuclear powered boat) looks like a Victor III with a missile compartment added. Taking a SSN design and adding extra compartments to hold the ballistic missiles is an old trick, pioneered by the United States in the 1950s to produce the first SSBNs. The Chinese appear to have done the same thing with their new SSN, creating a larger SSBN boat of 9,000 tons displacement. Priority was apparently given to construction of the 094, as having nuclear missiles able to reach the United States gives China more diplomatic clout than some new SSNs. The first 094 entered service about a year ago.
Having already sent the first two new, 7,000 ton, 093 class SSNs to sea, China was apparently underwhelmed by their performance. Not much more is expected from the 094s. The 093s are too noisy, and have a long list of more minor defects as well. This may mean 2-3 093s will be built, while more resources will be diverted to the next SSN class; the 095. The Type 093 and Type 094 were both over a decade in development and construction. Work began on the 094 class in the 1990s. For years, all that was known was that the Chinese were having technical problems with the new design. The 094 is a modern SSBN, using technology bought from Russia, plus what was developed by the Chinese in their earlier nuclear submarine building efforts. The Chinese have had a hard time building reliable nuclear subs, but they are determined to acquire the needed skills. You do that by doing it, and eating your mistakes. U.S. intelligence experts believe that China is building a class of five Type 94s.
Google Earth images of China show underground hangers for aircraft at an airport outside the city of Le Dong, on the southern island of Hainan (near Vietnam). For nearly five years now, commercial satellite photos have been revealing details of a military buildup on Hainan. The most obvious example of this is the submarine base that China was building at Yulin, near Sanya. The base has underground docking facilities for nuclear and diesel-electric subs, created by tunneling into coastal hills.
Rumors of such a base began circulating after 2002, apparently once locals began noticing all the construction activity, and the tight security around the site. The underground facilities not only protect the boats from air or sea based attack, but enable maintenance and modifications to be done in secret. Same deal with the airport tunnels, which are also visible to anyone passing by on the ground. But there’s nothing as compelling as pictures.
Obama leaves the country...hears intel on a credible threat that our coastline might be attacked by a nuclear missle? He goes to India and gets the hell out of the country to go on a trip that was canceled 2 times before at the same time spectacular UPS planes are scheduled to blow up every where in the sky.
I could see Obama easily saving his own ass and being out of the country while a quarter of us melt away.
Good that TWA didn’t have a flight in the area this time.
Might not be an ABM bit no way in hell is that a trail from an airplane.
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More on mystery missile launch off Calif. coast: FAA tells NBC it ‘had not approved any commercial space launches in that area’ at that time
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