Former U.S. Ambassador to NATO Robert Ellsworth, who is also a former Deputy Secretary of Defense, started this by calling it a “big missile”.
I saw the interview. The guy is way beyond his “use by” date. Among other things he actually said, staring knowingly into the reporterettes eyes, that the missle came from an “underwater submarine”.
Actually the defense department take is just as amusing. It says the thing we all saw in the video, with an orange exhaust glow and rocket-like plume of smoke being jetted backward, could have been a conventional aircraft vapor trail. Something to do with being an optical illusion. Uh, tail number please.
But let’s run through the real possibilities on the assumption it was a rocket:
1. Misfire by US Navy vessel. Not good.
2. Misfire by foreign vessel. Not good. Especially this close to West Coast.
3. Warning shot by foreign vessel. See comment 2 above.
There is no up side to this story for the Defense Dept. or the Usurping Onada Administration.