Amazing Interview: Air Force General says "Sub Launched Missile, 100% Certain"

Fox News Interview with Air Force General Tom McInerney | November 14th 2010 | Fox News Hannity Interview

[DontTreadOnMe2009]

Hannity was surprised to hear a famous ex Air Force General tell him “That Is A Missile, Shot From A Submarine!” I quote retired Air Force Lieutenant General Tom McInerney (ex commander of 11th Air Force in Alaska) “I spent 35 years flying fighters, and you can see the guidance system kick in, I have watched that film 10 times, I am absolutely certain that that is not an aircraft, but a sub launch ICBM missile!!!” See the video and judge his words for yourself. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LivRJOWrcpA&feature=player_embedded#! I will next post a clickable link.

[mojitojoe]

I tend to agree, BUT if these are so common, why didn’t our government say immediately it was a plane, even give the flight number. Why so hush hush and why still so vague on the matter?

[kingu]

Chinese sub is my guess. I simply can’t imagine our own government taking the risk of firing a submarine launched missile over the U.S. and possibly Canada.

Sunset launches result in this phenomenon:

This was a recent Vandenberg launch near sunset, the picture taken from San Diego, though similar sights were seen as far away as Phoenix and Tuscon AZ. There was no after sunset displays in the sky on that evening, I certainly would have noticed as I was driving that direction. So to add to the 'mystery' of this being a missile, it produced no upper atmosphere contrails, meaning it would have had to go into a ballistic mode at normal commercial aviation flight levels.

I know the admiral in charge of the western pacific. If he even suspected that there was a submarine launching missiles in his neck of the woods, he'd throw everything he had into searching for it, and if ordered to do anything else, would be in front of a television camera within minutes to expose it.

Thousands of private pilots, thousands of boat crews on commercial and private ships, hundreds of commercial aircraft pilots, air traffic controllers, the AF Space Command in Los Angeles, Port Huneme Naval Base, Edwards AFB, Vandenberg AFB - no conspiracy survives that many people (not to mention the millions in Los Angeles who somehow missed this as well...)

[little jeremiah]

Here’s the bottom line.

It’s a question of trust, for people like myself who are definitely not experts of any kind.

Trust in peoples’ character, that they are who they say they are, what their motives are, expertise, experience, training, and so on.

You’re saying basically “I’m right, he’s right, trust us”.

There’s a lot of emotional investment being flung about here.

I don’t trust easily. I’m not saying that I “know” what it was. But I sure as heck am not going to blindly believe anonymous people on the internet who want me to trust them implicitly and get bent out of shape if I don’t.

[eyedigress]

RFE, this has nothing to do with an individual. The visual is a bit disturbing. I have worked the secret places of the west and this would seem to be an exercise of an immediate threat. I don’t know, but I don’t appreciate being called a fool for such speculation. If that is the case then fine. I would think an exercise off the coast is more in order.

[kingu]

I tend to agree, BUT if these are so common, why didn’t our government say immediately it was a plane, even give the flight number. Why so hush hush and why still so vague on the matter?

Really, that's the clearest indication it's NOT a coverup. If they came out instantly and said 'oh, yeah, that's a UPS flight or flight 808 out of Hawaii inbound for Phoenix', I'd probably be on the side of the missile theory. Of course they'd have no idea what it was that was filmed, all they'd know is a) They didn't launch anything, b) the FAA didn't report any missiles, and c) their own detection systems didn't report any missile launches.

That someone went digging long and hard to find another angle of the 'missile', lined up the shots, used Google Earth to match up flight paths - I know a lot of us would like to imagine our government doing that, but I've yet to meet a public employee who'd show that much imitative.

[TXnMA]

Sorry!

My comment wasn't "aimed at" you. I just thought you might enjoy the website from which the photo came... :-)

[dragnet2]

He also noted that if it had been a missile, Air Traffic Control in the LA area would have been inundated with calls from other aircraft asking "What the *ell was that we just saw?!" That didn't happen according to the caller.

Ya, it really gets chaotic when the tower is jammed with calls from the public. Same thing happens when they deliver beer and pizza...That's when all those near misses occur.

:o

[mojitojoe]

Well, just when I begin to think for sure it was a plane, you come along and make sense with that post. Now I’m not sure again.

[Tolsti2]

There’s numerous pictures of other contrails on other days, and above a person that lives there said this is a relatively common sight.

[dragnet2]

Whoop...I didn’t see, “other aircraft”....

lol..

[RFEngineer]

“You’re saying basically “I’m right, he’s right, trust us”.”

He posted substantial evidence, there was other substantial evidence posted on thread. Some people take more convincing than others.

Eventually these experts that declared a missile launch will sheepishly admit their folly.

You don’t have to trust anyone, you can look at the pictures, the science, the 3-D depiction of the actual flight path.

[little jeremiah]

Many people are convincing and both sides can’t be correct.

Maybe we will find out for sure sometime soon.

The gov reaction was not appropriate, for one thing.

[TXnMA]

Just because you haven't taken the time to seek it out doesn't mean that such corroborating data hasn't been posted. Go here http://contrailscience.com and look down toward the end of the page. You will find 3-d flight path data for the actual aircraft flight involved in the "missile" photos.

However, reading the entire thing is highly recommended...

The other irrelevant felgercarb you alluded to is just that -- irrelevant...

[RFEngineer]

“I have worked the secret places of the west and this would seem to be an exercise of an immediate threat.”

So have I. Which ones did you work on, and in what capacity?

“I don’t know, but I don’t appreciate being called a fool for such speculation.”

If you are being foolish, you ignore evidence presented to you, or declare it “inconclusive”, why should it be such a stretch that you would be called a fool for it? It happens to everyone from time-to-time, and is as much amusing as it is humbling if you have a good attitude about it.

You’re just wrong on this one. Is there a gentler way to say it? perhaps, but why be wishy-washy?

[B4Ranch]

>>Good question. Here’s another: Why, in a sky full of aircraft, weren’t there scores of pilots reporting a missile launch or other strange phenomenon to ATC?<<

Yessir, that is a good question. You are the first to raise an iota of doubt in my mind.

[RFEngineer]

That can’t be a missile launch. It doesn’t look like a contrail.

[raygun]

Right. But you aint having contrail at FL350; the contrail is forced down at a rate of 1000' / minute for approx 10 minutes (or more). So that contrail could be as low as FL200. I'd have to have a forecaster advise me based on atmospheric sounding how low that could be.

According to reporting requirements layers in excess of FL100 are reported to the nearest 1k' (not +/- 5k). Based on the above, I'd still call the layer broken at estimated FL250 (unless I had a PIREP). Then I'd call broken layer CS estemated at whatever is reported in PIREP (can't rely on PRIREP for measured value). I'd bet real money any PIREP for PHO bound flight on 9 Nov at 0000 UTC (or two to three hours earlier) aint reporting a layer higher than FL250; that's because the contrail and the CS layer are merged.

In the middle etage you have to call w/in 500', and below 5000 you have to call to nearest 100'. The pilots begin to get upset when your layer and ceiling heights are significantly in error so as to affect operations. What perecentage of error is 1000' out of 30000'? You get pretty good at calling it (even if its an estimate). When I was in the field I prided myself on calling <5000 layers w/in 50' (that's pretty much spot on).

[kingu]

Excuse me sir, you dropped your sarcasm tag...

[B4Ranch]

I’m beginning to believe you are correct. I’m stubborn but not stupid.

[RFEngineer]

“The gov reaction was not appropriate, for one thing.”

I don’t like being in a position of defending bureaucracies but really the reaction wasn’t unexpected if it wasn’t a missile. They were clueless because there was no threat.