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.
I think that it would be irresponsible to elaborate on what was not aired.
But think about it: obviously this was property of the U.S. government, and they don't want to talk about it. Therefore, I don't want to talk about it. What does it say on this page?
Loose lips sink ships.
“If it had been a ballistic missile launch then NORAD would have the info and detection of it. They obviously don’t so it is a puzzle as all they have is the footage”
You must have quite the security clearance to know what NORAD does and doesn’t have.
The Paki navy has nice French designed/built nuke subs with 12 launch tubes each. Ultra quiet engines and cruise range reported to be in the 4,000 mile range. They could do it easily.
Oh cool. Mystery solved. Can we please have the flight number and all pertinent information regarding it’s path now?
/s
San Clemente Island is a live fire navy base, has been since the 1930's. Someone has likely posted this by now, but I don't want to read 900 plus posts. Wikipedia has info on it.
I grew up cruising and racing sailboats to Catalina, never came near San Clemente.
They could have had another failure(2 failures last month) or this could have been an “acquire and track” test.It could be totally un-related to the ABL,but that area IS a KNOWN military test ground.No freaking way this was a “rogue” launch or China,or any other thing than a military or contractor test.
That's pretty convincing. It's frustrating that the news footage just shows quick snippets. At one point they do a zoom to the point of the contrail that gives the suggestion of an ascending rocket. However, the pan back shows the base of the contrail evidently on the horizon and illuminated by the setting sun.
“Remember that this is basically how the UFO movement keeps chugging along. Something is seen that looks odd, no immediate explanation can be found, officials state the fact that there’s a perfectly natural explanation... and many conclude that there is now evidence of alien craft and a government cover-up.”
Like JAL 1628, where multiple ground-based radar (civilian and military), the involved pilots, and at least one other plane’s pilots imagined the exotic-movement unidentified flying object doing things no tech on earth is known to be able to do?
Your help with understanding the radars involved being subject to the same hallucination as the pilots would be appreiciated, this one has always stumped me.
Simple: Happened before—Durned old center wing tank blew the nose off of a 747 again, catching it on fire, then the silly thing immediately pointed straight up due to the weight of the tail, and the inertia caused a “zoom climb” from sea level to out of sight, or camera range. Whatsamatter with you conspiracy nuts?
WHERE IS BIDEN. WHO IS IN CHARGE?
The article states where it came from, but does not indicate where it landed or what direction it was going? Has anyone heard where it landed, or what direction it was headed?
Hey, thanks for replying to the ping. I see that you post on an infrequent basis, so I do appreciate the elaboration. Looking back (for no other reason than being an inordinately curious individual by nature), I see that you are a former Army pilot, a flight instructor, charter jet pilot, corporate jet pilot, and currently a NewsChopper 2 pilot (presumably for the station that filmed and aired the video we're all talking about here).
As you say, "obviously this was property of the U.S. government...", and earlier you said that after filming it and seeing what it could do, you understood why the government wouldn't want to talk about it.
Now I'm going to assume that you are who and what you say you are, I see no reason not to. Given your vantage point when you filmed this, and given your aviation expertise, I believe that you're in an exceptional position to at least approximately identify what you saw...property of the U.S. government, behaving in a way that convinced you they (the government) wouldn't want to comment on it.
Apparently, authorities are now coming forward to Fox News saying unequivocally that this was simply the contrail of a jet. I would take it you don't believe that's what you saw, and what you filmed.
At any rate, I am reassured by your comment that what you saw was of U.S. origin, and I'll leave it at that. Thanks again for your insight!
In the light of this, I wondered if it was a demo to China not to get too cute, demonstrating that we could still launch nukes with Teh One partying down in India...
NO cheers, unfortunately.
“I mean, if a rival nation was launching missiles 35 miles off the US coast, why would the military even leave the issue open to speculation..”
why ? because 1) IF it was ours, something is seriously wrong if there is that kind of activity, and no one seem to know a thing. I agree with other posters, if that was ours, by now we would know. 2) IF IT IS NOT OURS, it is a MAJOR disaster for our entire Defense apparatus. China or Russia are the only two possible “senders” of that piece of hardware. Either one, our military looks very, very, bad. Just as bad as on 9/11 when the only two airplanes they could scramble were totally unarmed. What do we pay all the defense $$ for ? This ? I want my money back !
Fox now speculating it was a launch in “error”.
Rogue asteroid heading towards earth...? Launch attempt to take it out before impact in western hemisphere... I pray not....
Rogue asteroid heading towards earth...? Launch attempt to take it out before impact in western hemisphere... I pray not....
OldMissileer: “That is a sub launched ballistic missile and it looks as if its’ trajectory was taking it toward Kwajalein Atoll where we target our western test launches.”
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/2624382/posts?page=47#47
With my tinfoil hat firmly atop my head I can’t help but wonder at the fact that this happened while Zero was halfway around the world.
Some are saying that this is nothing more than a contrail from a jet airliner. It must have been a 747 taking off on floats 35 miles west of LA.
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