L.A. contrail a missile launch? Retired general thinks so (op-ed)

Daily Inter Lake.com ^ | Sunday, November 21, 2010 2:00 am | Updated: 8:13 am, Sun Nov 21, 2010. | Jim Cash, retired brigadier general, U.S. Air Force

[TigersEye]

Sliding silently under the mud, muck and fog of national politics, is a current event that makes Bill Clinton’s excursion into the world of elderly sex look tame in comparison. This time the nation’s national security is truly threatened in my opinion, and it involves not only a weak president with limited problem-solving ability, but leadership at the highest levels in the Pentagon as well. The American people would do well to demand a full investigation by an unbiased group, and let the chips fall where they may.

I am referring to the “missile shot” taken off the California coast recently, and the lame response by NORAD, the Pentagon and the White House itself.

(snip)

In my opinion, there is absolutely no doubt that what was captured on video off the coast of California was a missile launch, was clearly observed by NORAD, assessed by a four-star general within minutes, and passed to the president immediately. That is the way the system works, and heads fall if there is a failure. This is one of the most important tenets of national defense and its sole purpose of protecting the American people. Even the smallest failure in this system gets intense scrutiny at the highest level.

Now, the question that still must be answered is why NORAD’s muted response was simply that North America was not threatened, and later our government approved the lame excuse that the picture recorded was simply an aircraft leaving a contrail. This decision was made far above the four-star level, and because the system in place demands it, was made by the president himself.

(More at link)

[Hardraade]

Oh, no evidence to offer?

Pertaining to what? Your impressive ability to post multicolored jellyfish and giant arrows, your many and relevant street freeps, or just your evident insanity?

You know, I don't give a sh*t ;).

[Hardraade]

Going for rainbow p**ises, are you?. Whatta surprise. Those are in your area, I take it?

Quit while you're behind.

Oooh. A veritable double entendre. Or double-decker. Sorry, I'm afraid only Bawney is behind you.

[Mr. Silverback]

Pertaining to what?

Asked you about four different things. You provided no evidence on any of them, just insults. And not very good ones at that.

Swing under the silk canopy and remember to bend your knees when you hit the ground.

You know, I don't give a sh*t ;).

Good. When you're getting your butt handed to you it's best to go to your happy place and try to forget about it.

[Dagnabitt]

He's wrong on the who and the why. Not chinese, Iranian. And it was supposed to be a hit, the one that Obama had announced the US could absorb. It would neatly have voided any election results and ushered in martial law, and Obama had it all laid down when he went off with a whole administration-in-exile plus a small navy to back him up.

An FR classic.

Invents a fact (Iranian SLBM capability), and then uses that as a basis for no fewer than three additional evidence-free paranoid fantasies...all in a couple sentences.

.... paint-huffer's haiku?

[Mr. Silverback]

As for those who are labeling us "missileers" a conspiracy that is a very good example of Saul Alinsky's Rule #13 from Rules for Radicals. It is not a form of debate it is a tactic used to cut off debate.

I have not used that term or any other insulting term to describe you missile folks, but let me ask you this: How long did it take for you guys to start calling people planeloaders and vaporheads? How long did it take you guys to start accusing people of working for Obama because they believe this object was a plane? I'm sure the first time planeloader was directed at me was withing minutes of my first post on the McInerney thread, and the first charge that I was a government shill followed shortly thereafter. Does that mean you guys are Alinskyites, or does it just mean some people are more able to be civil than others?

Of course, that leads aside the ludicrous idea that calling someone a "missileer" is casting them as a "devil" who must be silenced and destroyed. Get down off the cross, we need the wood.

[Mr. Silverback]

Yes, it is amazing that you are the only sarcastic Freeper. :-)

[Mr. Silverback]

Yeah, he’s gone from zero to nutbag in short order.

I’m sorry, I don’t have a lot of confidence in Iranian tech, but the idea that they would just happen to deploy a missile with guidance so screwed up that it would go 180 degrees from the target...believing that takes more faith than I can muster.

More on Iranian subs later. Should be fun.

[TXnMA]

LOL! ...and I crack up when I envision that pacifier painted below the cockpit!
'-)

[TigersEye]

BS. That was your first post to me on this subject on any thread. I am far from the only one you jumped with your nasty sneering attitude without provocation either.

[TigersEye]

I have not used that term or any other insulting term to describe you missile folks, but let me ask you this: How long did it take for you guys to start calling people planeloaders and vaporheads?

No, you have not and that wasn't aimed at you or any one poster in particular. I let a lot slide before I responded in kind. So did a lot of others who believe it was a missile. Go read the earliest threads and see for yourself. Any one of the following keywords will find you every thread on the subject unless it was posted later than 2:AM this morning.

californiamissile;contrail;missilemystery;mysterymissile

You might appreciate some of the other keywords that good FReepers have inserted on many threads as well.

freerepublickooks;freerepublickooksite;kooksite;

[TigersEye]

Finny has asked me to assist him in posting the following two
pics and for efficiency the text he wants to accompany it.

---

Finny’s comment:

A side-by-side comparison of these two photos shows how the same sunset angle will illuminate a column rising toward it differently than how it will illuminate a column passing over it.

In the contrail photo, as in the missile video or any still shots (that would be, photos! of the same), the sunlight is coming from below on the north west side, to the POV’s lower right. Look at how the side of the cylindrical column (although it has been flattened and scattered in places by high winds) that we can see, the side facing the ground as it passes five miles above the earth, is reflecting brilliant sunlight shining up at it.

The reflection is consistent from end to end of the contrail and width-wise comprises most of it, two thirds of the column’s width, generally. The part we see lit brightest is the side facing westerly, and the majority of the plume is being lit from below on the west side. We’re looking at the same side of the plume as the sun.

We cannot see the side of the column facing away from the sun because it is facing upward, toward the heavens. The only part of the column that’s in shadow that we can see from our POV is the east-facing side of the contrail — the left side of the column, from our POV.

The lighting happens this way because it is horizontal and we’re below it on the same level as the sun.

In the missile plume photo, about 2/3 the width of the plume column is in shadow, and about one third of it is brightly illuminated. That is the side of the column that we can see from our POV, and it looks that way because we are BEHIND it, not below it. The other side of the column is facing west; if we could move around and look at it, about 2/3 of it would be in sun and about one third in shadow.

But we’re behind it, looking westward. The shaded side of the column that we can see is NECESSARILY the part facing the opposite direction of the west setting sun. It is facing easterly. It’s vertical. The sun is looking at it from one side, and we’re looking at it from the other side.

On the contrail, the shadows tell us that it’s passing overhead and the sun is below it. On the vertical plume, the shadows tell us that the column is FACING the sun, and our POV is behind the column.

-------------------------------------

One above the other is the best I could do, Finny. There isn't enough page room to post them side-by-side without shrinking the pics or forcing the viewer to scroll back and forth. - TE

[Finny]

Thanks, Tiger. I just have to give it one more launch! Thanks for helping!

[TigersEye]

You are quite welcome.

[mach20]

Check out this pdf page 55 and tell me if you still think it was a Chinese missile. There is no conclusive evidence at this time, only conjecture.

http://www.scribd.com/doc/42555151/National-Geospatial-Intelligence-Agency-Notice-to-Mariners

[Rokke]

"A side-by-side comparison of these two photos shows how the same sunset angle will illuminate a column rising toward it differently than how it will illuminate a column passing over it."

I'm going to have to confess that the more you explain your views on how a person can use sunlight and shadows to determine the vertical or horizontal orientation of something in the sky, the less inclined I am to agree with you. But maybe that's just me. However, since you believe the "trail" (trying to be generic) filmed off the coast of California is a vertical missile launch, could you explain in the picture below, the following:

1. If the portion of the "trail" that meets the horizon is its launch point, how is it that it is almost entirely illuminated by the Sun? Is the Sun between the launch point and LA?

2. Given that you can see the entire trail in this picture, and given that a missile has a relatively short booster phase (very few minutes), how do you explain the massive distortion of the trail near its lowest point? If it is being spread by the wind, there must have been much greater than gale force winds very near sea level. I haven't heard anything about that. Has anyone?

3. As the "trail" "climbs", why doesn't its color change? If the trail is vertically oriented, it must be climbing very rapidly in elevation. As it climbs higher in the atmosphere, sunlight striking it would not be influenced by lower altitude contamination, and the trail should look the same as all contrails or missile trails at high altitude. Like these:

4. And finally, why is it that despite thousands upon thousands of photos of actual missile launches, none look like the photo taken off the coast of California? Given that you can actually identify an object leaving the "trail", if it were a missile, it is still expelling exhaust and must still be in its boost phase. That means it is still accelerating and unless it is flying horizontally (which you obviously don't agree with) must be climbing at several times the speed of sound. Yet, even in the video, it just kind of sits there toward the end. Nothing like any rocket or missile ever photographed or filmed. How do you explain that?

[Finny]

And hey, Tiger ... just FYI, I’m a she! Otherwise, I HOPE I wouldn’t be calling kanawa “sweetie”!!! ;^)

[Finny]

Keep on distracting with photos of outside events. The airplane contingent totally discount my and others' here first-hand experience of eye-witessing dozens, if not hundreds, of real missile launches to compare. The airplane side, MOST of whom have never seen a missile launch live, won't let us compare becuase they discount the validity of those comparisons.

Yet they will watch as you throw still photo after still photo after still photo at us asking us to compare them to the original video, when common sense tells ANYONE that a video of a moving event, such as an airplane leaving a contrail or a missile leaving a plume, is going to convey more information than a still photo of a moving event. I took the challenge and showed how, plain as the nose on your face, your classic contrail photo reveals how the setting sun underlights a horizontal trail as opposed to how the same setting sun lights a vertical plume.

But in the end, there's only one image, or set of images, that matter in this dispute: those in Leyvas' video. It appears as though you are doing everything you can to prevent people from watching the video and everything you can to get them to look at something else.

People have so much ego invested that when I and others note our personal experience witnessing real launches, those who haven't interpret it as "bragging" and thereby give themselves an excuse to discount our more qualified comparisons. I'm not bragging and neither is anyone else. What I AM doing is trying to enlighten lurkers that there is a sophisticated, deliberate efffort to deceive Americans into thinking a missile launch was an airplane.

[Rokke]

I actually have no idea what your background is with respect to missile launches. But if your entire argument rests solely on Leyvas' video, then no wonder you are getting frustrated trying to convince people to believe that you know what you are talking about. The single still from that video is not only fuzzy, it doesn't show the whole event. It might fill a particular hole in your argument, but most people prefer to have as much information as possible about a topic before they draw a conclusion. If your argument is valid, you should be eager to have it tested with as many videos and pictures as you possibly can, because they would confirm what you are saying. Instead, all other evidence provides a strong case that the trail Leyvas filmed looks nothing like an actual missile launch, but has all the characteristics of a heavy aircraft contrail.

That you refuse to answer a single question I asked of you, but instead resort to complaints about completely legitimate comparison photographs (taken from a 2 minute Google search) and conclude by claiming that there is a "sophisticated, deliberate efffort to deceive Americans," puts the rest of your posts into context.

[Mr. Silverback]

Well, try this: Put aside the persecution complex and answer Rokke's questions.

You also are campaigning against a strawman, whether you realize it or not. To discount your experience watching launches, one would have to say that this event obviously doesn't resemble a missile launch. I'm not aware of anyone who has said that, and if they did, they're a fool. What the question is, is does this resemble a missile launch because it was a missile, or does it resemble a missile launch for the same reason witnesses said this one below did?

"Missile launch" seen off Orange County on 31 December 2009 . Note how the "rocket exhaust plume" has many of the characteristics that missile theorists here have said proves it is a missile.

Before Finny and others cry out that this is a still and video is what makes the case, take a look at these:

Video of "missile" starts at the 10 second mark
You may want to mute this one...unecessarily loud, spooky music Note how many of the commenters on this one call it a missile. One guy even says he's a Marine and knows a missile trail when he sees one. And in both videos, it looks like a missile to me, too.

But it's not a missile. Here's a photo of the same event taken from Santa Monica:

So, as I've stated, the argument is not "You guys are dumb doodyheads and seeing and working with live missiles means nothing, doodyhead" the argument is "This looks like a missile launch even to the experienced eye because of the circumstances it was taken under, but it is in fact an airplane, and we can use other data to prove it."

Other photos of the 31 December event (including more proof it was a jet and not a missile) are here. What I find especially interesting on that page is a list sent to them by an actual rocket scientist who agrees it's an airplane. So here we have a guy who says he's seen many launches, yet says that the object is a plane. If you disagree, is that "a sophisticated, deliberate efffort to deceive Americans" or does it mean you disagree?

Bottom line? The whining from the poor, persecuted missile crowd is just chidish, as is the conspiracy theory BS. Deal with disagreement like a grown up or stop posting at FR. We already have too many children slinging poo around here.

[Mr. Silverback]

Oh, and one more thing: the rocket scientist? His list is based exclusively on Layves’ video.