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.
This bears repeating -- but they follow it up with a comment of probably Contrail?
NK doesn’t have the subs to do this with I don’t think. I could be wrong, but this is a BIT more tech then NK has the capabilities for.
Thank you. Ballistic, indeed. They “fall” like a shell.
Thats where Husband’s boat did their Certification test after sea trials.
The only thing that makes sense is if they were in something that we COULD detect - I don’t think there’s any law against them running their subs up to 35 miles out, but the fact that they fired off an ICBM was the “gotcha!” in the deal. So, they fire one off heading north west. Then the question is, do we have the ‘nads to sink the sub. We have to still know where it is. I mean, THEY FREAKING FIRED AN ICBM 35 MILES OFF OUR COAST! This is a bit reminiscent of the chinese sub that sat on the bottom till our flat top convoy came over and then surfaced right in the middle of all 30 ships or whatever, less than two miles from the carrier. Surprise~! Gotcha!
Unfortunately, all’s fair in love and war.
But, I am no expert on contrails. I have yet to see the video ( I've looked on youtube ), only seen photos and in all of them the contrails are at about a 45 degree angle to the clouds. Plus there are some sharp and distinct angles to the trail which I have not seen before.
But what the hell do I know about missiles. I'm sure there are plenty of FR folks who know the science behind this.
The North Korean navy is considered a green-water navy and operates mainly within the 50 kilometer exclusion zone. The fleet consists of east and west coast squadrons, which cannot support each other in the event of war with South Korea. The limited range of most of the vessels means that even in peacetime it is impossible for a ship on one coast to visit the other coast.
Guess that eliminates one player.
Yeah, I'm assuming, since it's the military.
As I posted earlier. This event will be part of the excuse Obama will use to claim he is in exile and rule from abroad.
Sometimes the truth is too brutal to say out loud. This is one reason for the constant prevarication of the politician. Also that words are always twisted into different meanings.
They can when they are on boost phase.
They can when they are on boost phase.
They can when they are on boost phase.
different subject. All of the Bush book stuff has him giving Cheney POTUS while he had a colonoscopy. This is stricktly up to the POTUS.
Let’s say Obama is overseas and drunk and high? Biden has the football?
I hear ya,, I give this 72 hours and the trut’ will out..
or we’ll all be glowing. :-)
I personally don’t know yet if anyone in the media knows. Update:
Pentagon Can’t Explain “Missile” off California (Drudge)
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2624382/posts
If we are just exploring the "foreign power" option then yes, that's more likely.
Russia doesn't currently have solid fuel SLBMs; they had old solid-fuel R-39 which were decommissioned around 2004, and they have new solid-fuel Bulava (RSM-56) which doesn't even work yet. The workhorse of the Russian Navy is the liquid-fueled Sineva (R-29RM,) it launches with no smoke because the liquid fuel burns cleanly. But the missile in the photo was using solid fuel, with unburnt particles creating the contrail.
China, on the other hand, has *only* solid fuel SLBMs (JL-1 and JL-2.) There are launch photos but they were taken at low light, so I can't say what the contrail looks like under the sunlight.
But on the higher level of the discussion one would doubt that China really would need such a demonstration of military power. First, China is weaker than the USA. Second, the Chairman of the Central Bank of China has more power over the USA than the entire Chinese military. Third, the fallout of such a prank would be unpredictable and not under Chinese control.
At this moment in time, when nobody knows anything, my bets are on some sort of a launch from a US submarine. Existing photos of Trident-II launch look similar to the occurrence near the LA. Also the launch happened in the known training and test area with heavy military presence - hardly the safest place for a foreign sub.
Corkscrews are often caused by winds going different directions at different altitudes. You should see how the space shuttle’s contrails appear about an hour or two after launch. They look like wheels, donuts, Arby’s french fires, etc!
As for Hanlon’s razor, it’s a valid observation. I remember on 9/11 thinking, “Wow, how could a pair of commercial airline pilots make such mistake?”
Then the second plane hit, and I knew we were at war.
I guess if there’s a second launch, we may know something is really up?
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