Small plane flying a grid for some reason.
Posted on 11/10/2010 8:24:09 AM PST by MindBender26
California Contrail Explained - Not Missile
After having about 10 experienced pilots and another 20 of us who are accustomed to watching missile launches from Cape Canaveral review tape, we have most probable answer for the mysterious California contrail. Tape was also reviewed by senior official at NGA.
It is not a missile. It is the contrail of a airliner at altitude moving toward the camera, at an angle of about 30 degrees off center to the right. Retired TRANSPAC airline pilots and USAF types said it was a rather common sight to see as they are climbing out over water on a westerly heading at sunset.
A few clues:
1. This is not as new event. The photographer who took video said in interview that it was very much like others he had seen week earlier.
2. Expanding contrail plume gives illusion that bottom/rear of plume is closer to observer than the top/newest part of plume, that which is near the aircraft. It is an illusion.
3. The light emanating from the object that looks like rocket flame is a reflection of the sun off the aluminum bottom of the a/c fuselage. The clues that it is not a rocket flame are that it is not hidden by contrail, and more importantly, is the same color temperature as the sun's other reflections.
4. There were no alarms from the DSP satellites. They detect heat from rocket launches from geostationary orbit. They are very good, so good in fact that when Sovs had a fire in an ICBM silo a few years ago, it was reported at NORAD immediately.
5. No radar, and there are numerous ATC and air defense radars in that area, had any track, primary or transponder, of any object on a course as speculated.
All in all, a false alarm. A very interesting one, but a false alarm.
Not the first false alarm, either. In the 60s, we went to DEFCON 2 based on DEW and PineTree line radar returns indicating Sov bombers inbound over Greenland. Was really delayed radar echoes off the rising moon.
Even if they had, you would be saying you didn't believe them and claiming another government coverup.
But look closely at the “rocket’ at the front of the contrail. It has anti collision lights because it goes from red to green in a rhythmic pattern. It is also a fact that our atmosphere frequently distorts views due to lensing and throws our perspective out of balance. (Oh, I forgot, the Military now has equipped their rockets with anti collision light systems....how silly of me to not know that!)
This IS an airliner, cruising in a high moisture atmosphere and the dispersed trail behind it proves that.
There is also another thread that points to a site debunking the missile theory. The site contains dozens of photos of interesting aircraft contrails, a couple of which look almost exactly like this one. They even have a nice drawing of how the curvature of the earth alters our perception of these things. It’s pretty interesting, but I don’t remember which thread it’s on. There are just too many.
I’d bet big money that it is a contrail from an airplane at high altitude.
“I Want To Believe”
Okay...
Shhhh! It’s a test run off the California Coast but don’t tell anyone...:) :)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YAbFWE1cruk
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LKs41zQW6iU
contrail of an airliner
That means they can identify the airliner. They have a date, a time, a location, and a trajectory.
What will be suspicious is NOT coming out with the ID of the airliner in question. It should be too simple to figure it out.
However, it doesn’t help explain everybody’s prior statements that nothing at all was in the area.
Oh thank you for coming along to rescue us from ourselves.
LMAO
I see you enjoyed all the photos of all the other missile launches I posted.
Incoming missile's come in without power. ICBM’s drop out of orbit and hit their targets without a trace, other than what radar can detect. This is why they are so effective and dangerous. They come in unseen.
The ignorance and simple mindedness here is astounding!
It was moving east, and not very quickly from the video (in which most of the “movement” is an optical illusion from the camera bouncing and the digital optics trying to make sense of the few-pixel image being zoomed in on from long range).
It only looks like it’s “moving west” because you think the contrail has to be closer where it is larger, like those illusions where you think the guy is really big or really small because you think the room is square.
The contrail is bigger further away, because it is spreading out over time. The “start” of the contrail isn’t coming from land, it is over the horizon.
Depending upon rocket size and trajectory, some KSC launches really boogie while others take a long, long time from this ground observer's perspective.
Maybe it is an optical illusion but that surely looked like a launch to me.
I love the intelligent debates and discussions we've had here over the years. Too bad you aren't part of it. Don't bother replying to me.
No, it was moving east. It was suggested it was moving west because it was assumed the contrail was a rocket plume, and it was bigger at the “bottom” which suggested it was closer at the bottom. IN fact, the “bottom” is just the furthest part away, going over the horizon, and is bigger because it has spread out over time.
Have you ever noticed how much bigger the moon is when it first rises up out of the ground at night?
You are not only a newbie TROLL, you are a stupid one at that.
I heard that is was traveling west. You say it was traveling east. Fine. I have no grounds to stick to what I heard, and I’m willing to grant that it might have been traveling east.
Question: what was it? The FAA radar tapes show no plane in that area (see page 3 of this article):
It is sad but no need to be so harsh. Educate rather than castigate and some will reason it out.
The other photographs linked on these threads should give anyone believing this was a missile a reason to rethink their immediate assumption. If not, there is not much you can do or say.
The really sad thing is the fact that this little exercise has gotten more MSM attention than the recent actions of the Fed.
And how would he have any idea how fast it was moving? You have a video shot from a moving helicopter, of an object at extreme distance, filmed zoomed in with no other features visible (except that at some point, a plane flies across the screen in about 6 seconds, which should be a clue about how zoomed in we are).
So far as you can tell from the video, the thing is hardly moving at all.
Look at the zoomed-in part where you think it is “moving”, and watch the contrail features. You will see that the features stay a constant distance from the “moving object”, which means if the object is moving, it is dragging it’s contrail with it.
B-17s aren’t jets, of course.
Frankly, I’m not coming down on either side yet, but it does put me off to see people trying to claim one thing or another as the only answer.
What if there were ten million photos of trails produced by aircraft that looked just like a missile? Would that mean that every trail that looked like that had to be produced by an aircraft?
This is the type of discussion that habitually frequents these threads. Know it alls always pop up to hawk their version of truth, regardless of alternative possibilities.
Could it be an aircraft trail? Yes. Could it be something else? Well, yes. Do we really know right now? Well, no.
—yep—the presence of Nellis AFB and Area 51 makes for some lights in the sky to the east and north of the former base of Art Bell-—
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.