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"Odd that so many still shots from the video are MISSING from that gallery, such as the one with what looks to be a Chinook helicopter hovering."

Odd? What is more odd are the assumptions you leap to from grainy, highly zoomed in video excerpts. A hovering chinook helicopter?!? Seriously? And to my knowledge I've never discussed the reflection of the setting sun on the aircraft. But on that topic, CBS did include this still...

The picture clearly shows the flying object leaving a trail. Some people who believe it's a missile, believe it is actually heading eastbound. If it is a missile, how is it possible that it is still expelling exhaust, but even in a highly zoomed in video, you can't see flame from the rocket motor? As an experienced observer of missile launches, you must know that one of the most prominent means of tracking a missile is the bright flame of its burning engine(s). Where is that flame in the image from the video? Regardless, since I obviously don't control what images are posted on the CBS website, your questions would be better directed at them. But you are implying that you don't trust their motives. Do you think they are hiding something or trying to influence what their viewers might think? If so, hold that thought. I think you're on to something.

With regard to Gil Leyvas, nice try but don't try to blame your confusion on him. All he did was shoot the video. He explains in an interview that he'd seen similar events in the past and wanted to capture it on film. He says he doesn't know what he filmed. And the CBS news folks never claim to know what is on the film either. They simply pieced together a short video clip from what is supposedly over 9 minutes of Leyvas video, and asked their viewers what they think is depicted. It isn't their responsibility that people like you believe a mystery missile was launched somewhere off the coast of California. That is your responsibility. And I hold you accountable for your opinion. Not Leyvas.

Finally, you say the sun proves the contrail is vertical. What is the elevation of the sun in the video? Where did it set along the horizon? Why doesn't the contrail color change from orange (low altitude) to white as it climbs to an elevation where the setting sun strikes it directly? You can watch that video non-stop for the rest of your life, but it won't provide proof of anything you say it does. It will always remain a very zoomed in, pieced together excerpt of a much longer event. Its few seconds provide a very short, soda straw view of an event that can't be accurately assessed without viewing a much broader picture. For now, the only way to view the broader picture is to consider stills taken from video shot by the same cameraman, of the same event, but not included by his editors in their short video clip. You refuse to do that. Probably because it interferes with your demonstrated habit of viewing the world through a soda straw similar to that of Leyvas' zoomed in lens. In your world, if something exists outside of your soda straw view, you don't want to know about it, and anyone who asks you to consider something different is a blatant liar or agent of disinformation. That is an extremely myopic perspective. I prefer not to share it.

“He says he doesn’t know what he filmed. And the CBS news folks never claim to know what is on the film either. They simply pieced together a short video clip from what is supposedly over 9 minutes of Leyvas video, and asked their viewers what they think is depicted.”

If he viewed the event for around ten minutes I would be suprised if he didn’t really know what it was. He would either be seeing a lingering smoke trail after the boost stages or he would be seeing a jet.

Has he given any reason why KCBS has chosen to only release less than a minute of heavily edited and repeated video as “raw” footage of the event? I mean, I suppose that would be frustrating for a camera guy, you shoot this astounding event and they only show a tiny little bit of it. I mean, it doen’t take much effort to stick a ten minute video on you tube.

FReegards

Leyvas said it was headed in a westerly direction. He's on tape saying it. Airplane contrailers here LIED outright about that, writing that Leyvas said it was headed east -- until Tiger linked the video where Leyvas stated uniquivocally that it was headed in a westerly direction. Here are Leyvas' exact words from a taped interview I think on Nov. 9, in a story on CBS news:

"It was unique, it was moving, it was growing in the sky. As I zoomed in I used a two-times extender on the lens to get a closer look, and you could tell that the object, whatever it was, was spriraling up in the sky. You could see the clouds were kind of swirling and as I zoomed in and got tighter on it, it appeared that it was spinning and going in a westerly direction.

"Well, I realized that it was something that we saw earlier from the week before -- we saw something very similar the past Thursday, and immediately I realized that it was something very similar, and called on the 2-way there to our assignment desk to let them know that we were seeing it again. It's not as dramatic as the one from yesterday -- the one from yesterday was pretty spectacular. Like I said, it was growing in nature and continued to fly up into the sky, and at one point it seemed to separate. The smoke or the plume seemed to stop and then continue further up in the sky and then finally disappear."

I never heard him say that he didn't know what it was ... but I know, and you know, that Leyvas HAD TO HAVE KNOWN within a second or two whether or not he was filming an airplane. And when it all comes down to reality, you're making a lot of unfounded assumptions regarding a baker's dozen of uncaptioned still shots on the CBS site that you purport are from about 10 minutes of video that no one has seen. Hmmmmmm ... as for the Chinook ... again, you want me to believe you, or my lyin' eyes? I'm not going to waste my time posting the links again. It's obvious in the youtube video of the Leyvas footage. The Leyvas footage was clearly edited. You think it was to mislead people into thinking an airplane contrail was a missile shot. It looks to me like what was edited was intended to hide something entirely different. What if the video parts edited out proved beyond doubt that it was a missile, and that it got deflected by something shooting at it?

Something stinks when CBS's own site doesn't ID the cameraman/photographer who shot the pictures and doesnt' even ID the pilot, but instead conpsicuously leaves the photographer/cameraman's name out of it and puts in the pilot's name without identifying his role. You act as if that's perfectly normal and understandable. Some of us here recognize it as a form of obfuscation and ass-covering.

So Leyvas either shot video of a missile plume ... or deliberately LIED into the camera, because he would have known within nanoseconds (as would you or I) if it was a plane. ANYONE WHO HAS WATCHED MISSILE LAUNCHES FROM RELATIVELY CLOSE UP KNOWS THIS FOR A FACT, the same way that they know that water is wet and snow is cold.

If YOU believe that Leyvas saying (which actually, I haven't heard in any interviews) that "he doesn't know what he filmed," you make a huge assumption. Has anyone asked him point blank: "Do you know what it wasn't?" Gee, maybe it was Santa's Sleigh! Leyvas doesn't know, remember?

The shot in your post of the short contrail -- THERE AGAIN, still shots tell zero, zilch, nada. To be an airplane leaving a contrail, it must be many, many, many miles away in that photo. Or it may be close, in which case it is most emphatically a missile leaving a plume. As EXPERIENCED MISSILEERS (or at least, FReepers who identify themselvs as such -- and don't ask me to link; I've already wasted too much time and you can do your own reading and homework) have noted, plumes from missiles exhibit a variety of phenomenon, depending on the missile and the temperature and humidity of the air. Indeed, one of those fellows pretty much shut ol' muawiyah up way back in early days of discussion. Happly for Mu, the fellow has moved on. That still shot at the top of the post (the only one I'm even going to bother with) could as easily be of a missile as it could be of a contrail. YOU CANNOT TELL from the photo, although the photo shown is much more indicative of a missile than an airline contrail, in my opinion from personal eyewitness experience of a whole lotta missile launches and a whole lotta airplane contrails.

Rokke, we're where we started: you have 13 uncaptioned still shots that are scrupulously NOT ATTRIBUTED to the Leyvas video. In a roundabout way, you present them as if they were.

And as for the angle of the sun lighting the plume, already been over that. No matter how often you repeat a lie, it's still a lie. The sun reveals an object headed the direction the cameraman said it was: WESTERLY.

One other thing to indicate that the photo in your post 472 is of a missile, NOT an airliner leaving a plume:

THE LIGHT. If it is a horizontal path with the sun coming from below ... how come the underside of this supposedly horizontal high-elevation (five miles above the earth) contrail is dark? Wouldn't the underside of a horizontal high-elevation condensation trail at sunset be very brightly lit? Gosh ... why do I predict you're going to spin that ... well, obviously (cue Rokke: " harrumph hum! If you could see the video which we categorically reject as evidence, you'd know this ...") .. it's because of some sort of shadow cast by a cloud far below on the horizon but which you can't see in this photo because it's from doctored video!!! Yeah, that's the ticket!!!

HALLLLLLOOOOOOO!! The dark part of the plume in that video is facing away from the sun (that's why it's called SHADE, dude!) and is therefore facing east if this shot is taken at sunset. The illuminated part of the plume in the photo it is facing away from the camera -- it is facing west.

Higgmeister, yet another example of these people posting photos that supposedly refute a vertical missile plume, but which actually CONFIRM IT!!!!

It's like he's telling people, "this red hat is actually a green snowmobile." And they're going, "Oh, yeah .... I see it!" Remarkable. Simply remarkable.

"Why doesn't the contrail color change from orange (low altitude) to white as it climbs to an elevation where the setting sun strikes it directly? "

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Awhile back, I posted this original graphic without comment -- at least comment back from Finny, to whom it was addressed. It is a small part of a color-illustrated discourse on the temporal and spatial optical dynamics of sunset and twilight on which I am working,

I believe it illustrates (in simplified form) the question you asked.

Finny, how did that "Vertical Missile Plume" wind up with its widest part in bright sunlight -- since it took off from the surface, which was already deep into post-sunset shadow?

~~~~~

BTW, Finny, you're welcome, Ma'am -- for the HTML help I attempted to give you on how to post images...