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.
I’m not an expert on missiles or contrails. If you want me to believe this was a jetliner’s contrail, though, I’d check out those engines. That was one heck of lot of water vapor or exhaust. The contrail explanation sounds kinda odd.
Dang! And I was sure it was Nancy Pelosi’s face exploding after one too many Botox treatments!
Other threads here on Free Republic have offered specific airline flights.
See: http://uncinus.wordpress.com/2010/11/09/4/
Flight AWE808 from Hawaii to Phoenix
See also: http://blog.bahneman.com/content/it-was-us-airways-flight-808
You are quoting someone called “Unicus” from an ANONYMOUS blog as your source? Who the hell is “Unicus”?
Porn...........
I’ve been an avid sky watcher all my life too. I live under the east west flightpath about 70 miles from Detroit. Sometimes there is no contrail, other times they’ll leave a contrail from one horizon to the other and everything in between.
Why are you quoting an ANONYMOUS Blog as your source?
Errant weather balloon.
A big one.
That is my question. Can someone in the know explain why the video appears to show the plane emerging from the direction of sea and not from the direction of the airport?
First, an unexplained missile laumch, and then a mammoth cruise ship has an engine fire/failue, all in the same general area..
One of the first things I heard was this “thing” was traveling in a westerly direction. Was the flight from Hawaii traveling west as it approached Los Angeles?
Bah! It’s was an underwater space alien ship blasting back towards space to go home, and I defy anyone who can prove it was not!
Thank you.
Your explanations make too much sense. They don’t feed the hysteria people want to feel so it justifies their existing feelings.
Not saying you have the answers, but your post makes the most sense of those I’ve read.
An MIT professor just said he saw the “rocket” drop its first stage. Not sure how that fits with your theory, but I am going to guess that some FReepers loathing of MIT will suddenly disappear when they hear that.
It is readily admitted that the vehicle was traveling WEST, a flight coming in from HI would be moving east. This explanation is BS. I've watched missile launches sine I was a young man in the 60s and this was a missile launch.
The apparent 95% of people that refuse to believe that it may simply be an interesting optical illusion makes me wonder if we really DO need the elites to do our thinking for us.
Swamp gas.. is what comes out of a Swamp a$$ which you get after a 23 hour motorcycle ride.
I guess from a distance that could look like a contrail.
No bearing on the story just thinking out loud.
What bull shit
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.